Sanderling

The Sanderling (Calidris alba) is a small wading bird. The name derives from Old English sand-yrðling, “sand-plowman”. The genus name is from Ancient Greek kalidris or skalidris, a term used by Aristotle for some grey-colored waterside birds. The specific alba is Latin for “white”. So scientifically, their name is a dead giveaway description of them.

About Sanderlings

Sanderlings are circumpolar Arctic breeders and are long-distance migrants. You can find these little birds wintering south to South America, South Europe, Africa, and Australia. They are highly gregarious in winter, sometimes forming large flocks on coastal mudflats or sandy beaches.

Though small, these birds are easy to spot because of their distinct features and habits. Bird-watching is fun, and extremely successful when you know what to look out for! There are many things that set birds apart and make it easier for you to distinguish between them. When you have a bird in mind that you want to spot, it is important to
know a little bit about the bird that sets it apart from the rest so you can spot it more successfully.

This is why this article will have a whole bunch of imperative information about Sanderlings, but compacted to make it easier and fun to read. Learning about birds is almost as fun as bird-watching, and it leads you steps closer to being better at identifying the birds you’re looking at! We have some of the most vital information on Sanderlings for this purpose.

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

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Sanderling Color Pattern

These winter birds are very pale, almost white apart from a dark shoulder patch. This is the source of the specific name, alba, which is the Latin for “white”. Later in the summer, their faces and throats become brick-red. The juvenile birds in this species are spangled black and white and show much more contrast than the adults of the species.

Sanderlings are small, sprightly shorebirds. While breeding, their plumage shows rusty tones on the upper parts, often with a frosty appearance when fresh. By mid-summer, their frosty feather tips fade away and their necks can be a deep, rich red. During this period, it is easy to confuse them with the much smaller Red-necked Stint! Sanderlings are very pale during the winter. Juveniles are nearly spangled with black-and-white above. At all seasons, these birds are larger in size and have somewhat thicker bills than other peeps or stints, along with bold white wing stripes in flight.

Description and Identification

Sanderlings are easy to spot because of their bright red necks in the summer and their pale plumage in the winter. Their ever-changing colors make it both easy to spot them and also easy to confuse them with other birds, which is why it’s important to note these important season-oriented color changes!

The Sanderling’s black legs blur as it runs back and forth on the beach, picking or probing for tiny prey in the wet sand left by receding waves. Sanderlings are medium-sized “peep” Sandpipers recognizable by their pale nonbreeding plumage, black legs and bill, and obsessive wave-chasing habits.

Learn this species, and you’ll have aid in sorting out less common shorebirds. They have an extensive global range, and so these extreme long-distance migrants breed only on the High Arctic tundra, but during the winter they live on most of the sandy beaches of the world. Another way to identify sanderlings is through the sounds they make, which leads us to the next section of this article.

Sanderling Song

The males of the Sanderling species call with croaking, frog-like trills before and during breeding display flights. The females signal their willingness to mate with a series of low buzzing notes that sound like a typewriter in motion.

Both the males and females of this species perform distraction displays, including snarls and cries, to lure predators away from their nests. Outside the breeding season, Sanderlings twitter in large flocks, each giving a series of soft, squeaky “wick-wick” notes.

Sanderling Size

Sanderlings are small plump members of the Sandpiper family. They average at 7.1–7.9 inches in length, with a very small wingspan. Their weight on average ranges from 40–100 grams.

Sanderling Behavior

Sanderlings breed on the High Arctic tundra and migrate south during the fall to become one of the most common birds along beaches. They gather in loose flocks to probe the sand of wave-washed beaches for marine invertebrates. These adorable little birds are often seen running back and forth in a perpetual “wave chase.”

On beaches, Sanderlings are strong, fast runners as they perpetually scurry just ahead of arriving and retreating waves. On the nesting grounds males establish territories about 400 yards across, and both members of a breeding pair chase intruders from the territory. Sanderlings are mostly monogamous, but their mating system may differ from
area to area and year to year.

Males (and, less frequently, females) perform aerial displays before mating. The bird alternately flutters and glides in an erratic path in an area about 200 yards wide, dipping low to the ground and rising to 30 feet high or more while vocalizing, these displays can last 2 minutes. After pairing, the two birds accompany each other everywhere. Studies in Canada have found that females sometimes mate with multiple males in sequence when conditions are favorable.

Both sexes incubate. When confronted with a predator, incubating parents freeze on the nest until the last second, when they creep away from the nest while feigning injury. Nest predators include Parasitic Jaegers, Long-tailed Jaegers, Glaucous Gulls, Snowy Owls, arctic foxes, and wolves.

During migration and winter Sanderlings may flock with other small shorebirds such as Dunlins, Red Knots, Black-bellied Plovers, Willets, Short-billed Dowitchers, Long-billed Dowitchers, Ruddy Turnstones, Semipalmated Sandpipers, and Western Sandpipers. They roost on beaches in closely packed flocks of up to several thousand birds, standing or squatting against the wind and jostling for the least exposed positions in the flock. When threatened by an avian predator such as a Falcon, Sanderlings take flight and form a tight ball that careens erratically over the ocean. These plucky birds often aggressively defend their feeding territories at the water’s edge from other shorebirds.

Sanderling Diet

Sanderlings feed by running down the beach after a receding wave to pick up stranded invertebrates or probe for prey hidden in the wet sand. Its diet includes small crabs, amphipods and other small crustaceans, polychaete worms, mollusks, and horseshoe crab eggs.

Sanderlings may also skim food from shallow pools while running, pick up moving prey on the ground, or during the summertime, they snap at flying insects. They eat crane flies, midges, mosquitoes, beetles, butterflies, and moths. When no animal prey is available. Sanderlings are even seen eating plant material, including saxifrage buds and shoots, roots, grass seeds, algae, and mosses.

Sanderling Habitat

During migration and winter, they forage on beaches but will also use mudflats. Sanderlings nest in the High Arctic on gravel patches and low-growing, wet tundra. Sanderlings are seen on beaches all over the world when they’re not nustling in the tundra or moving along mudflats!

Range and Migration

Sanderlings are long-distance migrants. Some Sanderlings travel as few as 1,800 miles to coastal New England, while others fly more than 6,000 miles to temperate South America. Even individuals that winter on the same beach can take different migration routes and may end up on different breeding grounds.

Sanderling Lifecycle

Sanderlings lay 4, sometimes 3 eggs. Their eggs are olive-green to pale brown with have brown and black spots. Incubation of these eggs is done by both males and females of the species, and the incubation period lasts around 24-31 days.

Sometimes females lay 2 clutches in separate nests and males incubate one set, while females incubate the other. At other times, females may even have two mates, leaving each male to care for a set of eggs and young, while the females depart. Once hatched, downy young leave the nest shortly. The young are tended by one or both parents. If
both parents are present at first, the females of the species may leave within a few days. Young feed themselves. And they take their first flight at the age of about only 17 days old!

After leaving their nests, this independent species goes on to live a full life. The longest lifespan for a Sanderling was 13 years. Most natural deaths are from predation and exposure to the cold. Sanderling populations are also impacted by human habitat degradation, especially in their beach habitats.

Nesting

During the breeding season, unmated males of the Sanderling species perform low display flights, alternately fluttering and gliding, while giving harsh chirring songs. On the ground, males run up to females with their feathers ruffled, and their heads hunched down on their shoulders. Their nest site is on the ground, usually in open and rather barren spots which may be higher than their surroundings. Their nests are shallow scrapes, often lined with small leaves.

The females choose nest sites near the shores of freshwater lakes or ponds. The nests are on the ground in an exposed location with little or no vegetation, often at a pre-existing depression.

The nest is speculated to be built by the female alone. She forms a shallow, cup-shaped hollow in the stony ground and lines it sparsely with willow leaves, saxifrage leaves, lichens, bits of moss, and occasionally dry willow twigs and pebbles. It measures about 3 inches across and 2.5 inches deep.

Anatomy of a Sanderling

Sanderlings are energetic, stocky, and robust waders. They have black legs and bills. Sanderlings also have black wing-bends that are not always clearly visible and obvious. They have broad white wing bars that are framed in black. Their summer plumage is a rufous head and back. Winter and juvenile plumaged birds of this species give a much whiter
impression than all congeners, with light grey upperparts and pure white undersides. Juveniles have star-shaped, black markings on their backs. Sanderlings also lack hind toes.

Final Thoughts

Sanderlings are easy to find on sandy beaches from fall through spring. Pick a beach with a low, gradual slope and walk along the water’s edge. Look for small shorebirds running back and forth in sync with the waves these are likely to be Sanderlings. While other shorebirds such as plovers and Willets may feed alongside Sanderlings on these outer beaches, this is truly the Sanderling’s domain.

These birds are absolutely adorable and are a delight to catch sight of by bird-watchers everywhere. The best thing about Sanderlings is that you can spot them on almost any coastal beach, no matter where you are in the world. The cherry on top of the cake is that they are listed as “Least Concern” in the IUCN. This doesn’t mean human activity isn’t slowly chipping away at the Sanderling population. Although they are marked as “Least Concern” in the IUCN, they are actually listed as a species of high concern by the Western Hemisphere Shorebird Reserve Network, making it imperative that we do our part in protecting this species. That way, bird watchers for generations to come can admire the marvelous sight that is the Sanderling!

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 Sanderlings

The most common types of bird watching binoculars for viewing Sanderlings 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.

Sanderling Stickers

Stickers are a great way for you to display your love for bird watching and the Sanderling. 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 ForSanderlings

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 ForSanderlings

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.