Bird Sightings: Sanderling

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Bird Sightings : Hebrides : Sanderling

Sanderling (with ringed plover)

Calidris alba

Gaelic: Luatharan-glas

Photograph © Peter Zerfahs
Barra - Outer Hebrides (Western Isles)
January, 2007

Winter Visitor and a Passage Migrant

Small wader (approximately starling size)
Runs very fast, typically running in and out with the waves in small groups.
A lovely silvery grey above in Winter, very white below, wings are dark - blackish, with a white wingbar.
Grey smudge around the eye, short straight dark bill, dark legs.

Long sandy beaches are Sanderling's favourite places, so Barra, the Uists and Benbecula are where they are most often seen in the Western Isles, but sometimes in Lewis and Harris in places like Mangersta and Luskentyre.

Sanderling breed on Arctic Tundra near freshwater lakes, so when we see them as visitors in the Spring and Autumn, they are on their way to and from the Arctic.

There are 23,000+ overwinter in the UK, a couple of thousand of those visit us.

Similar birds which we get in the Western Isles are Dunlin and Knot.

See a close-up photograph of a sanderling by Peter, or photograph of a group of Sanderling taken by Debbie Bozkurt. Or a flock of sanderling in flight by Terry Fountain.

Other local bird photographs

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