Pectoral Sandpiper

The Pectoral Sandpiper is a small breed of birds, usually found around North America and Asia. These tiny birds are very fond of traveling and are very long-distance migratory birds.  According to some studies, their long voyages are linked with the rise in climate change. Nevertheless, these petite birds continue to make it to great distances. Though still seen quite often, some reports suggest that the enormous population is not what it once was. This bird can be found in a vast number of locations, including the continents of Asia, Australia, North America, much of South America, and the Caribbean, and has vagrant populations in the Middle East, Africa, and Antarctica. Its preferred habitat includes grasslands, wetlands, marine, and coastal locations. 

About Pectoral Sandpipers 

These birds have beautiful, sandy backs, with scaly-looking feathers because of the beautiful contrast between the dark and light shades. Pectoral Sandpipers can usually be found in shallow wetlands and muddy areas.

Like the other Sandpipers, Pectoral Sandpipers are very territorial and can be seen getting aggressive when someone tries to occupy their territory. Another interesting fact about Pectoral Sandpipers is that they are among the few birds that swim to survive. This could be because they primarily reside in wetland regions.

Considering the varying habits of Pectoral Sandpipers, it might be a good idea to read up on all you can about this bird species before you set out on your birdwatching journey. Now that you have been introduced to this bird, let us not waste any time before getting to know them better!

● Pectoral Sandpipers Photos, Color Pattern, Song
● Pectoral Sandpipers Size, Eating behavior, Habitat
● Pectoral Sandpipers Range and Migration, Nesting

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Pectoral Sandpiper Color Pattern 

An adult Pectoral Sandpiper has patterns of brown, gold, and black. The upper portion of the adult Pectoral Sandpipers is an eye-catching dark brown shade with scales and very heavily streaked brown breasts with a plain white belly. They have a distinctly long, dagger-shaped bill with a dark brown crown area with streaks. Their head pattern is often a white throat with brown stripes. Pectoral Sandpipers have amusing dark brown button eyes. The females in the Pectoral Sandpipers have paler breasts compared to the males and are also smaller in size.

For young Pectoral Sandpipers, the brown, streaky breast, white belly, and slightly down-curved bill and yellow-brown legs stay common, but the juveniles seem to have some rusty-edged feathers above, till the time they have fully grown.

The classic brown breast band that gives the species its name and white belly are its most distinctive features. The legs are yellowish and greenish and comparatively more prolonged than other local birds. Their tapered wings have a pale, whitish wing-bar and black rump with white edges that are visible when they take flight. Amongst other distinctions, Pectoral Sandpipers have a relatively long neck. Pectoral Sandpipers have a pointed tail with streaks with their upper bottom that can be brown or black and white undertails.

Description and Identification

Pectoral Sandpipers are easily identifiable birds because of their distinctive features and patterns. Their streaky brown bodies make it easy for the spectator to spot them amongst other birds. 

The Pectoral Sandpiper is almost as large as a Dunlin, categorizing them as medium-sized birds. When looking for a Pectoral Sandpiper, remember to note their slightly down-curved bill and yellow-brown legs with their thick-based bills and long wings. These features make them especially easy to identify.

They reside near coastal areas when not migrating. Hence, when visiting such sites, make sure to catch a glimpse of these spectacular birds. The males of this species perform spectacular flight and terrestrial displays to attract the females, and these pairing rituals can be riveting, especially for novice birdwatchers.

Pectoral Sandpiper Song 

Pectoral Sandpipers have a harsh, hollow hooting sound, interspersed with growling and squawking notes. Often, they give a low, sharp “churt” that is loud and memorable. Their vocalizations can be easily distinguished from the calls of other shorebirds. They have rich, throaty calls. Their calls are harsh and unpleasant. It is usually a low “churrrt”, “krrrek”, or “tik-tik-tik”. The male uses an inflatable air sac to vocalize during courtship displays.

When breeding, the males give a distinctive call that is high pitched and notably different from earlier arriving individuals. The male’s flight display is accompanied by a rapidly repeated, low-pitched hooting sound that some consider a song, as it functions to attract mates and mark a display territory. Males make a sound as they deflate their air sacs beneath the breast plumage, forcing out the air.  Females in distraction behavior at the nest give low tremulous “kirip, kirip, trip, trrrrr” presumably as a warning to young-and day-day-day, thought to be an “all clear”
signal. Males in autumn migration give an aggressive “id id id id id” toward nearby conspecifics. 

Pectoral Sandpiper Size

Pectoral Sandpipers are delicate and attractive birds that are sometimes confused with ruffs due to their similarities in features and size. They have a medium-size body and a delicate, long beak. They are shoe-size birds, similar to Robins but are larger than the small “peep” Sandpiper. A male Pectoral Sandpiper is significantly larger than a female Pectoral Sandpiper, almost 50% larger. In length, they range from 19–23 centimeters or 7.5-9.06 inches. Their weight can be anywhere in the range of 1.6-4.44 ounces. So, they
can be quite fluffy. Their wingspan is about 14.6-17.7 inches, which is standard for the general dimensions of Sandpipers.

Pectoral Sandpiper Behavior 

Pectoral Sandpipers are rapid fliers, with many turns, like Snipes because of their zigzag flight pattern. Their flight pattern is like a fighter jet with many twists and turns!

Since Pectoral Sandpipers are infamous as the promiscuous birds, hence their courtship methods are also quite exquisite. Once the plain is part further from snow and ice in the spring, male Pectoral Sandpipers claim territory by displaying in flight, inflating the air sac to a lower place their sharply flecked chests and producing odd mooing calls as they fly with hyperbolically slow wingbeats. The abundant little females arrive a small amount later than the males, typically in small flocks, and displaying males fly directly over them.

Besides their distinctive flying, Pectoral Sandpipers walk slowly while foraging, and then often stand upright, with their necks extended when alert. 

Pectoral Sandpiper Diet

As in the case of most Sandpipers, Pectoral Sandpipers pick from mud for insects and other invertebrates. Insects will always be their first choice of food. Mostly they forage in or close to vegetation instead of in exposed areas of wetlands or tundra. On the breeding grounds, they consume large quantities of insects and larvae of crane flies, midges, and beetles, together with some spiders, algae, and seeds. Their diet can also include tiny crustaceans (such as amphipods, seldom small crabs), bugs, bees, wasps, crickets, grasshoppers, and on occasion, some small fish when they run low on resources. Unlike other birds, Pectoral Sandpipers use both sight and touch to find prey as they walk slowly through wetlands.

Pectoral Sandpiper Habitat

Since Pectoral Sandpipers are migratory birds, there’s not a specific region where they live. They often breed in Arctic tundra, usually in wet and well-vegetated habitats, such as bog and tundra. Outside breeding season, they live in a variety of freshwater and brackish wetlands, both coastal and inland, including upland plateaux.

Pectorals gravitate towards habitats in the tundra, particularly in lakes with green edges. The ones that travel to North America utilize comparable wet, verdant conditions, from sewage lakes, furrowed homestead fields, turf ranches, rice fields, and overwhelmed fairways to freshwater and saltwater bogs with low, lush cover. In Central and South America, transients turn up in a considerably more prominent assortment of natural surroundings, including stream banks, ditches, ponds, seashores, estuaries, and surprisingly above treeline, in the Puna (snow-capped) zone of the Andes. Usually breeds on relatively flat and marshy tundra that has sedges and grasses, but also contains raised ridges or hummocks that provide suitable nest sites.

Range and Migration

Timing-wise, Pectoral Sandpipers are one of the first shorebirds to flee tundra to find favorable places; these birds withdraw by midsummer, before females and juveniles. Some shift to living spaces along cold coasts others move to subarctic bogs and waterway valleys before leaving on longer toward the south flights. Siberian reproducers move toward the east into Alaska for the breeding period.

When they travel towards the North, from South American wintering regions to the Gulf Coast of North America, their journey is quick. When these birds arrive in North America, they concentrate west of the Mississippi River and east of the Rocky Mountains, generally during May.

Pectoral Sandpiper Lifecycle 

A female Pectoral Sandpiper lays an average of 4 eggs in one go. The eggs are dull white, cream, buff, or olive, marked with brown, purple, and gray spots or streaks, with a glossy and smooth surface. They lay eggs at 24-28 hour intervals. The incubation period of the eggs is 21-23 days.

It has been reported that only the female incubates and plays a prominent part in the early days of young Pectoral Sandpiper’s life. The chicks are precocial and can feed themselves shortly after hatching. The female stays with the chicks for 10-20 days. She usually leaves before they fledge at 21 days.

Nesting

After the mating season, the Pectoral Sandpipers Females select the nesting site, ordinarily in a dry, raised region like a hummock or edge. Bantam willows safeguard the site here and there, providing them adequate nest protection. They generally breed in wet beach front tundra overwhelmed by grasses and sedges. Females assemble the home in raised regions like little edges, which are drier and give better visibility. However, they keep away from dry tundra and find their home in wet areas with cotton grass and little bush, for the most part away from the coast. 

The female shapes a nest with her feet and breast and then lines it with grasses, sedges, lichens, greenery, and leaves. Nests are normally around 4 inches tall, with a depth of about 3.3-2.2 inches down.

The male Pectoral Sandpiper has a very minimal role to play when it comes to the feeding and caretaking process of the newborns, through the hatchling stage till they fledge.  

Anatomy of a Pectoral Sandpiper 

Pectoral Sandpipers are somewhat lean birds that are usually bigger than other Sandpipers. Their bills are somewhat decurved and usually longer. Their eyes are dark brown, button-shaped, and proportionally small for their face. They have thin, slender legs and claws that are equally thin.  Interestingly, the name “Pectoral” refers to the inflatable air sac on the male’s chest, which is puffed during the time of courtship.  They have large wings 9 inches long with a 17-inch wingspan that help them perform stunts during mating rituals and attract a partner. 

Final Thoughts

These are fantastic birds that travel the majority of the world. The rapid decline in their population is concerning.  These magnificent creatures provide not only ecological balance but also a fantastic view to the spectator. Their unusual migratory behavior is a result of the rise in climate change. Needless to say, if no action is taken, we might end up losing these beautiful birds.

Some areas that we can prioritize for further research are their behavior on nonbreeding grounds, their bodily changes between breeding and nonbreeding season, and their interactions with other birds during nonbreeding seasons. For many shorebirds, fat deposits accumulate, and their behavior changes with the seasons. It would be interesting to learn more about these wonderful birds!

Ornithology

Bird Watching Academy & Camp Subscription Boxes

At the Bird Watching Academy & Camp we help kids, youth, and adults get excited and involved in bird watching. We have several monthly subscription boxes that you can subscribe to. Our monthly subscription boxes help kids, youth, and adults learn about birds, bird watching, and bird conservation.

Bird Watching Binoculars for Identifying Pectoral Sandpipers

The most common types of bird watching binoculars for viewing Pectoral Sandpipers are 8×21 binoculars and 10×42 binoculars. Bird Watching Academy & Camp sells really nice 8×21 binoculars and 10×42 binoculars. You can view and purchase them here.

Pectoral Sandpiper Stickers

Stickers are a great way for you to display your love for bird watching and the Pectoral Sandpiper. We sell a monthly subscription sticker pack. The sticker packs have 12 bird stickers. These sticker packs will help your kids learn new birds every month.

Bird Feeders ForPectoral Sandpipers

There are many types of bird feeders. Bird feeders are a great addition to your backyard. Bird feeders will increase the chances of attracting birds drastically. Both kids and adults will have a great time watching birds eat at these bird feeders. There are a wide variety of bird feeders on the market and it is important to find the best fit for you and your backyard.

Bird Houses ForPectoral Sandpipers

There are many types of bird houses. Building a bird house is always fun but can be frustrating. Getting a bird house for kids to watch birds grow is always fun. If you spend a little extra money on bird houses, it will be well worth every penny and they’ll look great.