Actitis hypoleucos likely descended from Actitis balcanica. In addition, it is closely related to spotted sandpipers (Actitis mulcaria) which are commonly found in North and South America. Besides "common sandpipers", this species may also be referred to as "Eurasian sandpipers" or "summer snipes".
Young common sandpipers are particularly vulnerable to predation before fledging. Further enhancing their vulnerability, chicks tend to be weak and unable to escape predators. As a defense against predation, parents fly away in order to distract the predators and they gather in flocks to work together to provide defense. When near water, they can also dive for short periods of time when being chased. Like many sandpipers, their brown-mottled coloration serves as camouflage in their coastal habitats. Some known predators of common sandpipers include estuarine crocodiles, foxes, weasels, gulls and skuas.
Known Predators:
Anti-predator Adaptations: cryptic
Adult, breeding common sandpipers are brownish-gray on their heads, napes and breast, which are all faintly streaked with dark brown. Their bellies and undertail coverts are unmarked white. Backs, wings and tails are overall darker brown, mottled with shades of tan and very dark brown. In addition, they often have a white ring around the eyes. Like many migrating birds, common sandpipers molt after the breeding season into their winter plumage. Winter plumage is a more drab version of the breeding plumage, and the streaking in particular fades or disappears completely. The young have white speckles also on the upper part. Juveniles look very similar to wintering adults, but have significantly more buff incorporated into their mottled upperparts. This species can be distinguished from the spotted sandpiper due to their longer tail feathers and darker legs. They are approximately 8 grams at hatching and their mass increases to about 40 grams when able to fly. In addition they grow to be about 20 cm long with bills measuring 21 mm in length. Their wingspan adult wingspan reaches 35 cm. This species displays no sexual dimorphism in plumage, but females tend to be a little larger than males.
Average mass: 40 g.
Range length: 18 to 24 cm.
Average length: 20 cm.
Average wingspan: 35 cm.
Other Physical Features: endothermic ; homoiothermic; bilateral symmetry
Sexual Dimorphism: sexes alike; female larger
Young sandpipers show a survival rate around 57%. With adults, this rate rises up to 85%. The average common sandpiper is able to live approximately 8 years in the wild. However, the oldest recorded individual was slightly over 14 years of age.
Range lifespan
Status: wild: 14 (high) years.
Average lifespan
Status: wild: 8 years.
Common sandpipers can live in a variety of habitats depending on season. During the breeding season, they tend to nest along sandy coasts and river banks preferably near fast-moving water. Their habitat can extend up into the mountains as high as the tree-line if the climate and environment is suitable. They are able to withstand heavy rain and a broad range of day-to-night temperatures to be expected in a temperate climate. In the winter when the breeding season has passed, common sandpipers tend to move south to more tropical climates where they prefer to live in wetlands. They generally choose ponds, rivers, canals, estuaries, and mangroves. As evidence by their habitat selection, common sandpipers avoid very hot climates, as well as frozen or snowy regions.
Range elevation: Sea level to 4,000 m.
Habitat Regions: temperate ; tropical ; terrestrial ; saltwater or marine ; freshwater
Aquatic Biomes: lakes and ponds; rivers and streams; coastal
Wetlands: marsh ; swamp ; bog
Other Habitat Features: riparian ; estuarine
Actitis hypoleucos, often referred to as common sandpipers, can be found throughout the world from western Europe, eastward across Asia to Japan, extending south to Africa and Australia. During the spring and summer when it is breeding season, they are typically found in the northern hemisphere ranging from the Atlantic Ocean to Japan, usually in temperate climates. Common sandpipers are migratory birds that overwinter in warmer climates throughout the Old World, specifically Africa, southern Asia, and Australia.
Biogeographic Regions: palearctic (Native ); oriental (Native ); ethiopian (Native ); australian (Native )
Common sandpipers usually eat small invertebrates, crustaceans, aquatic and terrestrial insects, worms, and spiders, as well as scavenge on scraps from boats or from near shore. On occasion, they will eat small amphibians, tadpoles, fish and seeds. They locate live prey by running along the coastline and then run, swim, or dive to capture it. They break their prey into smaller pieces in order to feed. Typically, they feed individually or in pairs and avoid foraging in areas where other flocks feed to avoid competition and predation.
Animal Foods: amphibians; fish; insects; terrestrial non-insect arthropods; terrestrial worms; aquatic or marine worms; aquatic crustaceans; other marine invertebrates
Plant Foods: seeds, grains, and nuts
Primary Diet: carnivore (Eats non-insect arthropods)
Actitis hypoleucos is one of three species within the family Scolopacidae that does not display a resistance to blood parasites. As a consequence, they tend to be carriers of blood parasites such as Haemoproteus contortus. Common sandpipers are also carriers of various other common avian parasites. They also play an important roles as predator and prey within their ecosystem.
Commensal/Parasitic Species:
There are no known positive economic effects of common sandpipers for humans.
There are no known negative effects of common sandpipers on humans.
Currently, common sandpipers are listed under the category of Least Concern by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN). They are presently one of the most widespread and adaptable shorebirds. There are estimated to be between 2,600,000 and 3,200,000 adults living worldwide. Their population has been declining recently, but their population size is large enough to not be vulnerable at this point. This decline in population is attributed to a decreasing breeding population as a result of those lost due to recreational fishing. Increased human development on coastal areas frequently disrupts the breeding activities of this, and many other shorebirds. Such disturbances during the breeding season result in failed nesting attempts, and an overall population decrease.
CITES: no special status
IUCN Red List of Threatened Species: least concern
Common sandpipers communicate with each other by vocalizations that resemble "Twee, wee, wee". These vocalizations are most common when they are flying in the air and trying to communicate. Common sandpipers are noisy when breeding or moving, but are very quiet when eating. In addition, they may use their wings and other forms of visual signaling. Like most birds, common sandpipers perceive their environments through visual, tactile, auditory and chemical stimuli.
Communication Channels: visual ; acoustic
Perception Channels: visual ; tactile ; acoustic ; chemical
Common sandpipers are almost exclusively monogamous for each breeding season. The length of this pair bond is currently unknown. The male will defend his territory and his female by making threatening displays. A specific example is a salute where they throw out one or both wings as a warning that they are prepared to chase intruders off to defend the territory. On rare occasions, the female may join in displaying threats, but the female does not engage in fighting.
Mating System: monogamous
Common sandpipers typically breed in the northern hemisphere during May and June. Common sandpipers construct scrape nests, which are essentially shallow indentations on the ground and are typically left unlined. The female excavates a nest within 50 meters of water and then lays an average of 4 eggs per clutch. The incubation period lasts an average of 21 days and the chicks usually hatch within the first 10 days of June. The precocial young fledge after 22 to 28 days. Growth rate of chicks have been shown to correlate with weather, with higher growth rates associated with warmer temperatures. They tend to be fast growing, but as a result use up a lot of energy early on in development. Juvenile common sandpipers often remain on the wintering grounds for their first summer, and thus don't breed until almost 2 years of age.
Breeding interval: Common sandpipers breed once a year.
Breeding season: Breeding typically occurs during May and June.
Range eggs per season: 3 to 4.
Average eggs per season: 4.
Average time to hatching: 21 days.
Range fledging age: 22 to 28 days.
Average age at sexual or reproductive maturity (female): 2 years.
Average age at sexual or reproductive maturity (male): 2 years.
Key Reproductive Features: iteroparous ; seasonal breeding ; gonochoric/gonochoristic/dioecious (sexes separate); sexual ; oviparous
The female is responsible for building the nest. Once the eggs have been laid, both parents share incubation duties until the eggs hatch after 3 weeks. The young are fed and protected by both parents for several days after hatching. Young are semi-precocial at birth and are able to leave the nest soon after hatching to hide in nearby vegetation. The female typically departs before the young fledge at 22 to 28 days old.
Parental Investment: precocial ; male parental care ; female parental care ; pre-fertilization (Provisioning, Protecting: Female); pre-hatching/birth (Provisioning: Male, Female, Protecting: Male, Female); pre-weaning/fledging (Provisioning: Male, Female, Protecting: Male, Female)
The common sandpiper (Actitis hypoleucos) is a small Palearctic wader. This bird and its American sister species, the spotted sandpiper (A. macularia), make up the genus Actitis. They are parapatric and replace each other geographically; stray birds of either species may settle down with breeders of the other and hybridize. Hybridization has also been reported between the common sandpiper and the green sandpiper, a basal species of the closely related shank genus Tringa.
The common sandpiper was formally described by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in 1758 in the tenth edition of his Systema Naturae under the binomial name Tringa hypoleucos.[2] The species is now placed together with the spotted sandpiper in the genus Actitis that was introduced in 1811 by the German zoologist Johann Karl Wilhelm Illiger.[3][4] The genus name Actitis is from Ancient Greek aktites meaning "coast-dweller" from akte meaning "coast". The specific epithet hypoleucos combines the Ancient Greek hupo meaning "beneath" with leukos meaning "white".[5] The species is monotypic: no subspecies are recognised.[4]
The adult is 18–20 cm (7.1–7.9 in) long with a 32–35 cm (13–14 in) wingspan. It has greyish-brown upperparts, white underparts, short dark-yellowish legs and feet, and a bill with a pale base and dark tip. In winter plumage, they are duller and have more conspicuous barring on the wings, though this is still only visible at close range. Juveniles are more heavily barred above and have buff edges to the wing feathers.[6]
This species is very similar to the slightly larger spotted sandpiper (A. macularia) in non-breeding plumage. But its darker legs and feet and the crisper wing pattern (visible in flight) tend to give it away, and of course they are only rarely found in the same location.[6]
The common sandpiper breeds across most of temperate and subtropical Europe and Asia, and migrates to Africa, southern Asia and Australia in winter. The eastern edge of its migration route passes by Palau in Micronesia, where hundreds of birds may gather for a stop-over. They depart the Palau region for their breeding quarters around the last week of April to the first week of May.[6][7]
It is a gregarious bird and is seen in large flocks, and has the distinctive stiff-winged flight, low over the water, of Actitis waders.
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It nests on the ground near freshwater. When threatened, the young may cling to their parent's body to be flown away to safety.[6][8]
The common sandpiper forages by sight on the ground or in shallow water, picking up small food items such as insects, crustaceans and other invertebrates; it may even catch insects in flight.
It is widespread and common, and therefore classified as a species of least concern on the IUCN Red List but is a vulnerable species in some states of Australia.[1] The purple sandpiper is one of the species to which the Agreement on the Conservation of African-Eurasian Migratory Waterbirds (AEWA) applies.[9]
In the Nukumanu language of the Nukumanu Islands (Papua New Guinea), this species is usually called tiritavoi. Another Nukumanu name for it, matakakoni, exists, but this is considered somewhat taboo and not used when children and women are around. The reason for this is that matakakoni means "bird that walks a little, then copulates", in reference to the pumping tail and thrusting head movements the Actitis species characteristically perform during foraging.[6][10]
The common sandpiper (Actitis hypoleucos) is a small Palearctic wader. This bird and its American sister species, the spotted sandpiper (A. macularia), make up the genus Actitis. They are parapatric and replace each other geographically; stray birds of either species may settle down with breeders of the other and hybridize. Hybridization has also been reported between the common sandpiper and the green sandpiper, a basal species of the closely related shank genus Tringa.
