General

Buff-breasted Sandpiper: Medium-sized sandpiper with buff wash over entire body except for white vent. Upperparts are black-spotted and streaked, while underparts are slightly scaled. Shows white wing linings in flight. Also has white eye-ring and black bill. Legs are yellow. Sexes are similar. Juvenile has paler underparts.

Range and Habitat

Buff-breasted Sandpiper: Breeds in Alaska and western Canadian Arctic, migrating through the midwest and occurring rarely on the Atlantic or Pacific coasts. Preferred habitats include grasslands and prairies, plowed fields, turf farms, wet rice fields; nests on Arctic tundra.

Listen to Call

Voice Text

"pr-r-r-reet"

Interesting Facts

 The Buff-breasted Sandpiper is sometimes referred to as a "grasspiper," because of its preference for grassy areas over the coastal mudflats favored by most shorebirds.

 During the late 1800s and early 1900s, this was an abundant shorebird, with population estimates ranging from hundreds of thousands to millions. By the 1920s widespread market hunting had decimated their numbers, resulting in near extinction.

 They are the only species of North American shorebird that exhibits a lek mating system, in which males defend territories for the sole purpose of performing displays to attract females; females do not receive any resources from males, nor do males aid in parental care in any way.

 A group of sandpipers has many collective nouns, including a "bind", "contradiction", "fling", "hill", and "time-step" of sandpipers.

Author

Gary Owen Dick