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SANDERLING FACTS |
Description
The Sanderling is a small sandpiper. It is mainly light grey in colour with darker back. In the breeding season the head, breast, back and wings are reddish brown streaked with dark and light. The underside is white. It the non-breeding season the head is pale gray with white face, the back and wings are pale gray with darker on shoulder of the wing. Males and females are similar in colour. Juvenile birds are similar to non-breeding adults but darker - the back is black back with white mottling, and there is band of dark streaks on chest and neck.
Size
20cm
Habitat
breeds on coastal tundra of Arctic. Spends the winter on sandy beaches, sandbars.
Food
insects and other land or aquatic invertebrates, crustaceans.
Breeding
Nest is a hollow in the ground. It lays three to four green eggs with brown blotches.
Range
The Sanderling is found around the Australian coastline, arriving around September. It is also a regular visitor to New Zealand It breeds in northern parts of North America, northern Greenland, northern Norway, and northern Russia. It is found on temperate and tropical beaches throughout most of the world.
Credits:
Map is from Atlas of Living Australia website at https://biocache.ala.org.au licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.
Classification
| Class: | Aves | | Order: | Charadriiformes | | Family: | Scolopacidae | | Genus: | Calidris | | Species: | alba | | Common Name: | Sanderling |
Relatives in same Genus
Sharp-tailed Sandpiper (C. acuminata)
Dunlin (C. alpina)
Baird's Sandpiper (C. bairdii)
Red Knot (C. canutus)
Curlew Sandpiper (C. ferruginea)
White-rumped Sandpiper (C. fuscicollis)
Pectoral Sandpiper (C. melanotos)
Little Stint (C. minuta)
Long-toed Stint (C. subminuta)
Great Knot (C. tenuirostris)
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