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Least Sandpiper Calidris minutilla Playero Menudo
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Photo: G. Beaton
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Least Sandpiper Calidris minutilla Playero Menudo
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Photo: G. Beaton
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IDENTIFICATION: This is the smallest sandpiper in the world. It is a richer brown above than other small shorebirds in the West Indies, and has yellow or greenish-yellow legs. Length: 13-15 cm.; weight: 19-30 g. VOICE: The call is a grinding, "kreeep." Audio (M. Oberle). HABITAT: Prefers grassy marshes, mudflats, edges of ditches, and flooded pastures and fields. HABITS: The Least Sandpiper forages in flocks with other species, often favoring the higher, vegetated edges of mudflats. It pecks or probes the surface of mud for insect larvae, crustaceans and other invertebrates. On the Arctic breeding grounds, this species established monogamous pairs. The male builds a nest scrape on the ground, which the female adorns with scraps of vegetation. Both sexes incubate the four eggs for 20-23 days, and the chicks leave the nest within a day of hatching. Many females then abandon the chicks to the care of the male. Although there is high mortality on migration, some Least Sandpipers survive to at least 16 years of age. STATUS AND CONSERVATION: A common spring and fall migrant visitor to Puerto Rico; rarer in winter. RANGE: Breeds on tundra and wet forest edges over most of Alaska and northern Canada east to Nova Scotia. It winters across the southern USA, south through Central America and the West Indies to southern Peru and central Brazil. Regular near Cabo Rojo and Ca±o Tiburones Nature Reserve. TAXONOMY: CHARADRIIFORMES; SCOLOPACIDAE; Scolopacinae |
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Photo: G. Beaton
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Photo: G. Beaton
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Photo: G. Beaton
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Photo: G. Beaton
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Juvenile - Photo: M. Oberle*
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References Bent, A.C. 1927. Life histories of North American shore birds, part 1. Smithsonian Instit. U.S. National Museum Bull. 142. (Reprinted by Dover Press, NY, 1962). Borowik, O. A. and D. A. McLennan. 1999. Phylogenetic patterns of parental care in calidridine sandpipers. Auk 116(4):1107-1117. Collazo, J.A., B.A. Harrington, J. Grear, and J.A. Colón. 1995. Abundance and distribution of shorebirds at the Cabo Rojo salt flats, Puerto Rico. J. Field Ornithol. 66:424-438. Cooper, J. 1994. Least Sandpiper (Calidris minutilla). No. 115 in The birds of North America (A. Poole and F. Gill, eds.). Acad. Nat. Sci., Philadelphia, PA, and Am. Ornithol. Union, Washington, D.C. del Hoyo, J., A. Elliott, and J. Sargatal, eds. 1996. Handbook of Birds of the World, Vol. 3. Hoatzin to Auks. Lynx Edicions, Barcelona. Grear, J. and Collazo, J. A. 1999. Habitat use by migrant shorebirds in a tropical salt flat system. Vida Silvestre Neotropical 7(1):15-22. Hayman, P., J. Marchant, and T. Prater. 1986. Shorebirds: an identification guide. Houghton Mifflin, Boston. Paulson, D. 1993. Shorebirds of the Pacific Northwest. Univ Washington, Seattle. Raffaele, H.A. 1989. A guide to the birds of Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. Princeton. Raffaele, H.A. 1989. Una guía a las aves de Puerto Rico y las Islas Vírgenes. Publishing Resources, Inc., Santurce, PR. Raffaele, H.A., J.W. Wiley, O.H. Garrido, A.R. Keith, and J.I. Raffaele. 1998. Guide to the birds of the West Indies. Princeton. Veit, R.R. and L. Jonsson. 1984. Field identification of the smaller sandpipers within the genus Calidris. American Birds 38(5):853-876. Wunderle, J.M., Jr., R.B. Waide, and J. Fernández. 1989. Seasonal abundance of shorebirds in the Jobos estuary in southern Puerto Rico. J. Field Ornithol. 60:329-339. Next related species in taxonomic order Previous related species in taxonomic order |
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