All species › Waders, gulls and terns › Sandpipers and allies › Least Sandpiper
Least Sandpiper | Calidris minutilla
Kleinste strandloper | Correlimos menudillo | Maçarico-miúdo
At around 20 grams, the Least Sandpiper is the smallest shorebird in the world. It breeds on the tundra and in the northern taiga of Alaska and Canada and winters from the southern United States to northern South America. More than other small sandpipers it feeds on vegetated muddy shores, also far from the coast and high into the Andes.
Voice
A high, rolling prrreet or krrreet, often when flushed.
Recording: Jeff Stewart — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · xeno-canto
Identification
13–15 cm, a very small, brown sandpiper with a short, thin, slightly decurved black bill and yellowish green legs, which can look dark when covered in mud. In non-breeding plumage brownish grey above with dark centres, with a brownish grey, faintly streaked breast band and white underparts. In breeding plumage browner, with black centres and rufous fringes to the back feathers. Juveniles have rufous-fringed upperparts, a white V on the mantle and a buff-washed, finely streaked breast. In flight a narrow white wing bar and a rump with a dark central stripe. The sexes are alike.
Confusion species
Semipalmated Sandpiper Calidris pusilla and Western Sandpiper Calidris mauri are slightly larger and greyer, with black legs and a paler breast. Pectoral Sandpiper Calidris melanotos has a similar pattern with yellowish green legs and a streaked breast but is much larger. Little Stint Calidris minuta, a very rare vagrant, has black legs and a straight, fine-tipped bill.
Habitat
Vegetated muddy shores, salt marshes, salt pans, shrimp ponds, lagoons and estuaries on the coast, and shores of lakes, rivers and rice fields inland, up to Andean lakes above 3500 m. It feeds in a crouched posture, often along the edge of vegetation, picking small crustaceans, insects and their larvae. It does not breed in the guide area.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of the Andes and the west coast.
Range and movements
In Colombia a common winter visitor on both coasts and scattered inland, also on Andean lakes. In Ecuador a common winter visitor on the coast, scarce in the Andes and the Amazonian lowlands. In Peru a common winter visitor on the coast, scarce inland. In Bolivia a scarce winter visitor and passage migrant in the lowlands and on the altiplano. On the Galápagos a regular winter visitor. Breeds in Alaska and Canada and winters from the southern United States to northern Chile and Brazil.
- Resident
- Winter visitor (c. Oct–Mar)
- Passage (Mar–Apr, Oct–Nov)
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
From September to April along the edges of salt pans, shrimp ponds and salt marshes on the coast; in mixed flocks look for the yellowish green legs, the brown breast band and the habit of feeding close to vegetation.
Conservation status
Near Threatened. The population is large, but counts in North America point to a decline, probably through the loss of wetlands along the flyways and on the wintering grounds.
Scientific name
Calidris minutilla | (Vieillot, 1819)
Vieillot described the species in 1819 as Tringa minutilla; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Calidris was introduced in 1804 by Merrem. The genus name comes from Greek kalidris or skalidris, a term used by Aristotle for an unidentified grey waterside bird. The specific name comes from Latin minutilla, a diminutive of minutus, 'very small'. The specimen the first description was based on came from Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.