Bird Sightings: Purple Sandpiper

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Bird Sightings : Hebrides : Purple Sandpiper

Purple Sandpiper

Calidris maritima
Gaelic: Luatharan-rioghail

Photograph © Peter Zerfahs
Eolligarry - Barra - Outer Hebrides (Western Isles)
30th December, 2006

"...I saw twites, snow buntings, turnstones, brent geese (I think, a bit far away), purple sandpipers . All in a very small area. There were also the usual rock pipits, starlings and gulls..."

Calidris maritima - Erolia maritima

UK winter visitor, Scarce breeder

21,700 birds wintering in UK (RSPB)

Medium-sized shorebird, larger, chunkier & darker than dunlin, mostly dark-grey above with purplish gloss, greyish breast, whitish below, black rump, yellow base to short & thin downcurved bill, short yellow-orange legs. Flight: shows thin white wing-stripe

Gregarious & approachable

Habitat: Stony beaches, mussel beds, by piers, rocky coast

Diet: Insects, spiders, crustaceans, and plants

Breeds: Tundra, Arctic Islands, Canada, North-west Europe (2 Scottish sites: secret keep from egg-thieves & disturbance)

Winters: Ice-free Atlantic coasts,

Listen: purple sandpiper RSPB site

Similar birds: dunlin, turnstone

"There is an English report of a purple sandpiper hybridisation with a dunlin - 1994 "

See a close-up of a purple sandpiper by Peter Zerfahs, or a photograph of a purple sandpiper by John Dempsey.

Other local bird photographs

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