Pectoral Sandpiper
April 6, 2017
Pectoral Sandpiper
Calidris melanotos
by Greg Hanisek, editor of The Connecticut Warbler, the journal of the Connecticut Ornithological Association
Where To Find It: This is an uncommon species in Connecticut, but also a wide-ranging one. I found a Pectoral Sandpiper this morning in the muddy cow pastures on Sand Bank Road, in Watertown (also a good place for Wilson’s Snipe, the Bird Finder subject from a couple of weeks ago), and a few have been seen regularly this week at Hammonasset Beach State Park.
Pectoral Sandpiper favors short-grass habitats, both inland and on the coast, but it also occurs in saltmarsh and on beaches. In addition to the two locations above, the sod farms at Rocky Hill Meadows and the gravel bars at Connecticut Audubon’s Milford Point Coastal Center can all attract Pectorals.
When To Find It: In spring, April is the key month. The astute shorebird aficionado will be looking in late March, and the Big Day planner knows it will probably be gone by the sweet spot in mid-May. This spring the Hammo birds arrived on March 29. In fall they can be found across the breadth of the migration season, from July (or even late June) to November, usually singly or in small numbers. The range of reports in eBird for fall 2016 was June 26 to Nov. 14. The high count was 11.
What It Looks Like: The Pectoral Sandpiper is one of nearly 20 species in the genus Calidris that have been found found in North America. These include notoriously tricky identification problems such as the five small North American species known as “peep” and their small Eurasian counterparts known as stints.
The Pectoral fits the basic plumage pattern, but it’s larger with yellow legs and a distinctive brown-streaked breast pattern that cuts off sharply to create a sharp demarcation between breast and belly. Least Sandpipers are mainly brown with yellow legs, but they’re the smallest of the “peeps,” six inches to the Pectoral’s eight-plus. In spring migration the largest “peep” — White-rumped Sandpiper — can show a similar breast pattern, but it is most common mid-May to early June while the Pectorals are mostly gone by early May. Of course other features such as the rump pattern easily separate them.
Conservation Status: Birds of North America Online offers this: No measurable effect of tundra disturbance at Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, during oil exploration in late 1960s on breeding abundances or nest densities 20 years later (1988-1989), or of tundra fragmentation on breeding abundance, nest density, or nest success. However, abundance of breeding adults was lower in the vicinity of recently constructed roadways near oil fields. Losses of wetland feeding and roosting areas, especially along migratory routes, and probably on wintering grounds, is undoubtedly important. Little information from South American wintering areas, but not considered to need high conservation priority there.
Of Special Interest: Pectoral Sandpipers migrate southward from Arctic breeding areas in largest numbers through central North America to winter primarily on the pampas of south-central and southern South America. Most individuals that breed in Siberia migrate east, or perhaps even along the Great Circle route over the Arctic Ocean, to Alaska or Canada and then on to South American wintering areas.
Individuals at the extremes of this range potentially make a total return-trip migration of more than 30,000 kilometers, a distance comparable to that flown by the Arctic Tern (Sterna paradisaea) and other migratory champions. Small numbers winter regularly in Southeast Asia and the South Pacific, mainly Australia and New Zealand (Birds of North America Online).
Photo by Dick Daniels, Carolinabirds.org.
