Purple Sandpiper

Overview

The Calidris maritima is a small, hardy shorebird belonging to the sandpiper family Scolopacidae. It breeds across the arctic and subarctic regions of Eurasia and North America before migrating to winter on the Atlantic coast.

Identification

• Body is dark on top with a slight purplish gloss and mainly white underneath, with a grey-smeared breast and a black rump.
• Measures 20–22 cm in length with a medium thin dark bill that has a yellow base and short yellow legs.
• Fairly gregarious and tame, often found in small flocks, frequently alongside ruddy turnstones.

Habitat

Breeds on the northern tundra of Arctic islands and barren mountain sides near the limit of frozen ground in the subarctic. In winter, it migrates to rocky, ice-free Atlantic coastlines on both sides of the North Atlantic, ranging from South Carolina in North America to France and northern Iberia in Europe.

Diet

Forages on rocky coasts by picking up food by sight, primarily consuming arthropods and molluscs such as littorinids and mussels, alongside some plant material. Seaweed flies of the Coelopa genera, particularly C. frigida, are a main staple of its diet.

Did you know?

The maximum recorded age from ring-recovery data in Europe is 20 years and 9 months, a specimen recovered in Sweden. An apparent case of hybridisation between this species and the dunlin has also been reported from England.