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Pectoral Sandpiper | Calidris melanotos
Gestreepte strandloper | Correlimos pectoral
The Pectoral Sandpiper is a sturdy sandpiper of wet grasslands and freshwater marshes that migrates from the Arctic tundra to southern South America. In the Caribbean it is a fairly common autumn migrant that may appear on any island with suitable fresh water. Males are clearly larger than females.
Voice
A dry, grating krrrt or trrrip, often given on take-off.
Recording: JAYRSON ARAUJO DE OLIVEIRA — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · converted to mono · xeno-canto
Identification
19–23 cm, with a fairly small head, a slightly decurved bill with a pale base and yellow-green legs. A distinctive feature is the densely streaked breast, sharply cut off from the white belly like a bib. The upperparts are brown with black feather centres and rufous and white fringes; juveniles show white mantle lines, like a snipe. The crown is rufous, with a faint pale supercilium. In flight a weak wing bar and white sides to the dark rump.
Confusion species
Least Sandpiper Calidris minutilla also has yellow legs and a streaked breast, but is much smaller. Ruff Calidris pugnax, a rare vagrant, is larger, with a smaller head and a plainer breast with no sharp border. Buff-breasted Sandpiper Calidris subruficollis is plain buff on the head and underparts, with a short black bill. Baird's Sandpiper Calidris bairdii has black legs and a less sharply defined breast band.
Habitat
Wet grassland and flooded pastures, the vegetated edges of freshwater marshes and ponds, rice fields, sewage ponds, flooded savanna and the margins of brackish lagoons. It often feeds half hidden in short grass or among low waterside plants and flushes with a zigzag flight.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation types of the Caribbean.
Range and movements
Passage migrant on almost all islands: the Bahamas, the Turks and Caicos Islands, Cuba, the Cayman Islands, Jamaica, Hispaniola (Haiti and the Dominican Republic), Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, the Lesser Antilles, the ABC Islands, San Andrés and Trinidad and Tobago. The largest numbers are reported from Puerto Rico, Barbados, Guadeloupe, Aruba and Curaçao. Beyond the region it breeds on the tundra of Siberia, Alaska and Arctic Canada and winters mainly in southern South America; a small part winters in Australia and New Zealand.
- Resident
- Summer visitor (c. Oct–Mar)
- Winter visitor (c. Apr–Sep)
- Passage (Mar–Apr, Oct–Nov)
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
After rain in September and October, flooded pastures, rice fields and the grassy edges of ponds are worth searching. In short grass the birds are only noticed when they raise their heads; the sharply bordered breast is then the quickest feature.
Conservation status
Not threatened. On Barbados and in the French Antilles the species was traditionally shot along with other shorebirds; hunting there has since been restricted. Drainage of wet grasslands and freshwater marshes also removes stopover sites.
Scientific name
Calidris melanotos | (Vieillot, 1819)
Vieillot described the species in 1819 as Tringa melanotos; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Calidris was introduced in 1804 by Merrem. Calidris goes back to Ancient Greek kalidris or skalidris, a name Aristotle used for an unidentified grey waterside bird. melanotos is from Greek melas 'black' and notos 'back', so 'black-backed'. The specimen the first description was based on came from Paraguay.