Medium small. Short legs, bobbing walk. Unique stuttering flight. Sexes alike.
Adults: Breeding: Upperparts, bronzy brownish-grey with dark shaft streaks. Tail, faintly barred barred and tipped with white, outer feathers paler with white notches on outer webs. Flight feathers, dark greyish-brown. Tips of greater and primary coverts form a conspicuous wing bar that includes white tipped secondaries. Eyebrow to nape, white. Eyering, white. Eyestripe, from lores to ear, dark brown. Eye, brown. Sides of face, neck, all of breast, with fine brown streaks, sides of breast, pale brownish-grey, leaving a white patch behind them ('hook'). Rest of underparts, white. Lesser, median underwing coverts, white. Greater underwing coverts, brownish-grey. Bill, dark brownish-grey, greyish-tan at base of lower mandible. Legs, yellow tan. Non-breeding: Similar to breeding plumage but less streaked above.
Immatures: Similar to breeding plumage but finely barred buff and black above.
Other Scientific Names
Tringa hypoleucos [Sibley and Monroe (1990, 1993)], Tringa hypoleucos [Cramp and Simmons (1977-1994)], Tringa hypoleucos [Turbott (1990)]
Other Names (World)
Common Sandpiper, Eurasian Sandpiper, Summer Snipe, Carrier Sandpiper
Family
Scolopacidae (Sandpipers, Snipes, Phalaropes)
Common Sandpiper (Actitis hypoleucos) [XC884152]
by Pere Josa from Rochefort, Namur, Wallonie, Belgium (nocturnal flight call)
Common Sandpiper (Actitis hypoleucos) [XC861917]
by Jorge Leit\u00e3o from An Lurg, Cataibh, Na G\u00e0idhealtachd, United Kingdom (call)
Breeding Season (Guide)
Does not breed in Australia. Breeds May - August in northern Eurasia.
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Nest
Cup-shaped, depression in grass or on the ground, lined with dead grass, moss or leaves, cealed by vegatation.
Eggs (Guide)
4, sometimes 5; glossy, blue-grey to variously buff, spotted and blotched with dark russet, and underlying grey; oval to pyriform; about 36 x 26 mm. Incubation: 21 - 23 days; by both sexes.
Subspecies
Occasionally considered conspecific with Spotted Sandpiper (Actitis macularius).
No subspecies.
Similar Species
Wood Sandpiper (Tringa glareola)
Sizes similar. Non-breeding with non-breeding. Upperparts, greyer, and spotted white on back. Rump, white. Breast, more heavily streaked. Lacks the white 'hook' at bend of wing. In flight, lacks a wing bar. Legs, longer.
Compare Images
The Field Guide to the Birds of Australia Pizzey, G., and Knight, E., 1997, Angus & Robertson, Sydney ISBN 0 207 19691 5
Field Guide to Australian Birds Morecombe, M., 2000, Steve Parish Publishing Pty Ltd. ISBN 1 876282 10 X
Field Guide to the Birds of Australia Simpson, K., and Day, N., 1999, 6th Edition, Viking ISBN 0 670 87918 5
Reader's Digest Complete Book of Australian Birds 1988, 2nd Edition, Reader's Digest ISBN 0 949819 99 9
What Bird is That? 1984, Revised Edition, Angus & Robertson, Sydney ISBN 0 207 14846 5
Handbook of Australian, New Zealand & Antarctic Birds 1990 - , Oxford University Press, Melbourne ISBN 0 19 553244 9
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