Green sandpiper

Voice

Very conspicuous, and usually the first sign of the bird: a shrill, three- to four-syllable tluee-weet-weet, rising in pitch with a plaintive undertone, repeated as it flies off. When uneasy on the ground it gives a short tlik. In spring a song flight over the breeding wood delivers a rhythmic, yodelling phrase. In the Netherlands the call can be heard almost all year except June, at night over open country and in winter along sewage lagoons.

Identification

Compact and dark, with short greenish legs and a short straight bill with a dark tip. The upperparts are dark olive-brown with fine pale spotting that only shows close to; at range the bird simply looks black. A narrow white eye-ring and a short supercilium that stops in front of the eye give a startled expression, and the finely streaked breast is sharply cut off against white. In flight: a square, brilliant white rump, a broad black tail band, no wing bar and above all a wholly blackish-looking underwing; the feet barely clear the tail. Juveniles are slightly warmer brown with fewer and finer spots, otherwise as the adult.

Confusion species

Wood Sandpiper is paler and slimmer, with longer yellow legs that project clearly beyond the tail in flight, a long supercilium running behind the eye and a pale grey rather than black underwing. Common Sandpiper is browner and shorter-legged, bobs its rear end constantly and shows a white wing bar and a white wedge in front of the wing bend. Snipe flushes in a zigzag with a rasping scaap and has a far longer bill — it is the flight silhouette above all that makes the two interchangeable along a ditch.

Habitat

Unlike most waders, the Green Sandpiper likes small, enclosed water: ditches, polder drains, woodland brooks, sewage works, seepage pools, cattle ponds and muddy margins under overhanging scrub. It rarely appears on open tidal flats. It breeds in damp conifer and birch forest in northern and eastern Europe and — uniquely among European waders — lays high in a tree in the abandoned nest of a thrush, pigeon or squirrel; the chicks jump down after a few days.

Range and movements

Breeds from Fennoscandia and the Baltic states through the Russian taiga, with small numbers remaining along the southern edge in Poland and Germany. The Netherlands has no annual breeding records but almost continuous passage: the first returning birds appear in late June, the peak falls in July and August, and several thousand winter in ditches, brooks and sewage works. In Spain it is a common winter visitor along rivers, irrigation canals and rice fields, deep into the interior of Extremadura and Andalusia.

• Resident
• Breeding (summer)
• Winter
• Passage
• Migration direction
• dark = core range, pale = thinly spread

Where and when to look

In July or August walk a polder ditch or a reedbed filter and watch for birds that spring up almost at your feet; a Green Sandpiper lets you come close and then gives itself away with its call. In winter small sewage lagoons and unfrozen seepage ditches are the most reliable places. Keep your distance and wait a moment and it will settle to feed instead of merely flying off — only then do the fine spotting and the sharp breast border become visible.

Conservation status

Least Concern globally; the boreal breeding population is large and stable. Along the southern edge of the range — Poland, Germany and the Baltic states — drainage and the clearance of damp forest have caused local losses. In the Netherlands winter numbers have risen over recent decades, most likely because milder winters keep ditches and brooks ice-free.