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Recent bird sightings
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..."
Our Purple Sandpiper photographs
- Purple Sandpiper
- Calidris maritima - Erolia maritima
- Gaelic: Luatharan-rioghail
- UK: winter visitor, Scarce breeder
- UK: 21,700 birds wintering in UK (RSPB)
- WI: Fairly common passage and winter visitor (occurs in small numbers) rare in summer
- Breeds: Tundra, Arctic Islands, Canada, North-west Europe (2 Scottish sites - secret kept from egg-thieves & disturbance)
- Winters: Ice-free Atlantic coasts
- Habitat: Stony beaches, mussel beds, by piers, rocky coast
- Diet: Insects, spiders, crustaceans, & plants
- 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
- Listen to a Purple Sandpiper (RSPB site)
- Similar birds: Dunlin, Turnstone
Purple Sandpiper records in the Western Isles
Fairly common passage and winter visitor (occurs in small numbers) rare in summer
On the chart below the darker the shade of blue the more abundant the bird is during a month or the more likely you are to see it.
J
F
M
A
M
J
J
A
S
O
N
D
(Source: Outer Hebrides Birds Checklist)
Sources of information for the bird sightings section
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