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Stilt Sandpiper | Calidris himantopus
Steltstrandloper | Correlimos zancolín
The Stilt Sandpiper is a long-legged sandpiper of the North American tundra that winters in South America and passes through the guide area in large numbers; some stay the winter in Mexico. It feeds like a small dowitcher, wading belly-deep with its bill probing deep into the mud, and often joins yellowlegs and dowitchers on shallow lagoons and pools.
Voice
A soft, rather hoarse tchew or kirr, and a low, rolling krrr; usually not very vocal.
Recording: Andrew Spencer — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · shortened to the first 60 s, mono · xeno-canto
Identification
18–23 cm, with a small head, long greenish-yellow legs and a long black bill with a slightly drooping, somewhat thickened tip. In non-breeding plumage brownish-grey above, with a white supercilium and pale underparts with fine grey streaks on the breast and flanks. Juveniles have a dark back with pale fringes and a pale buff breast. In breeding plumage, in spring and early autumn, a rufous ear patch and crown and densely barred underparts. In flight no obvious wing bar, a white rump and toes projecting beyond the tail.
Confusion species
Lesser Yellowlegs Tringa flavipes is larger, with brighter yellow legs and a thinner, straight bill, and walks around more actively. Short-billed Dowitcher Limnodromus griseus is larger and stockier, with a much longer bill and a white wedge extending high up the back. White-rumped Sandpiper Calidris fuscicollis is smaller, with shorter black legs, a shorter bill and long wings projecting beyond the tail.
Habitat
Shallow lagoons and salt pans, fresh and brackish pools, lakes and reservoirs with bare shores, inland saline lakes, rice fields, shrimp ponds and flooded grassland; less on open tidal flats. It feeds by wading, often in small groups, with a rapid up-and-down sewing-machine motion of the bill, sometimes plunging its whole head under water.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of Mexico and Central America.
Range and movements
Passage migrant throughout the guide area, from Baja California and northern Mexico to Panama, on both coasts and inland; most numerous in northern and eastern Mexico and during autumn migration, which begins as early as July. Winters locally in Mexico, mainly in the lagoons and shrimp ponds of Sonora, Sinaloa and Nayarit and along the Gulf coast, and in smaller numbers further south in Central America. Outside the guide area the species breeds on the tundra of Alaska and Arctic Canada and winters mainly in central South America.
- Winter visitor (c. Oct–Mar)
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
Shallow lagoons, shrimp ponds and flooded fields during autumn migration. At a distance the belly-deep wading, the sewing-machine action and the long legs pick the species out among the yellowlegs.
Conservation status
Near Threatened. The world population is declining. In the guide area the species depends on shallow lagoons, salt pans and wet fields, which are locally drained, filled in or converted into aquaculture ponds.
Scientific name
Calidris himantopus | (Bonaparte, 1826)
Bonaparte described the species in 1826 as Tringa himantopus; 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. himantopus is Greek for 'strap foot', after the long legs; it is also the genus name of the stilts. The specimen the first description was based on came from Long Branch, New Jersey.