Common Sandpiper
(Tringa hypoleucos)
Description: It is a small type of sandpiper with a long body and short legs. It is grey brown above with white on its underbody, extending up in a pointed shape between the wing and the dark breast band. There is an indistinct white eyebrow and white-eye ring. Their bill is dark grey with yellow at the base and the legs vary from greyish-olive to a yellowish-brown. Characterised by rapid flight, straight and low on stiff down-curved vibrating wings.
Also called Summer Snipe.
Size: 19cm-21cm. Average weight: 50g
Voice: a ‘tee-tee-tee’ call or a tremendous whistle, a ‘tittering’
Feeding: Hunts by day, eating small molluscs, aquatic and terrestrial insects
Habitat: Found in inland or coastal wetlands, both fresh and saline. Frequents muddy inlets, mangrove swamps, or the margins of stock dams, streams or drainage channels.
Location: Breeds in Europe and Asia, It then visits Australia and New Guinea mainly in the North and West of Australia.
Nests: A depression in grass or the ground, lined with dead grass, moss or leaves
Eggs: 4, creamy buff with spots of grey and brown.
Breeding: June to July in Europe. Female will build nest alone but both sexes share incubation and care of the young. May have more than one brood a year.
Acknowledgements: www.Birdlife.org.au Field Guide to the Birds of Australia: Simpson and Day, A Naturalists Guide to the Birds of Australia: Dean Ingwersen National Geographic, What Bird is that?: Neville W Cayleys, www.birdsinbackyards.net, https://www.xeno-canto.org/species