Least Sandpiper (Calidris minutilla)

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A Field Guide to Eastern Birds. by Roger Tory Peterson.

Return to Eastern Shorebirds

Winter Plumage

Color Photograph: © by and courtesy of John Cassady

Summer Plumage

Color Photograph: Steve Calver, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers

Least Sandpiper (Calidris minutilla)

Identification: Length from tip of bill to tip of tail 6 inches.

Summer Plumage: The smallest of the small sandpipers. Back, wings, and head brown, strongly mottled with black. Head with a dull white band over the eye and a vague dark band through the eye. Beak black, small, and narrow. Throat white, breast and sides white, with dark brown streaks. Rest of undersides white. Legs yellow or green-yellow.

Winter Plumage: Similar to the summer plumage, but duller and grayer.

Similar Species:  The Least Sandpiper can usually be easily separated from the other small sandpipers because of its yellow to yellow-green legs.

Breeding Range (see map below): The Least Sandpiper breeds in the northern boreal forest and some of the tundra regions of northern Canada and Alaska as far south as New Brunswick and Nova Scotia.

Overwintering Range:  This species the winter along the south Atlantic Coast and the Gulf Coast as well as the Pacific southwestern United States.

Habitat: The Least Sandpiper is found in bogs, marshes, small ponds, and mudflats.

Food: Aquatic insects and other invertebrates.

Behavior: The Least Sandpiper is one of the tamest of the shorebirds. They are also almost unique in preferring grassy areas to the open shore areas common to most other shorebirds. The voice is a sharp treep.

Reproduction:  The clutch consists of brown-spotted pink-tan eggs. The eggs are laid in a ground depression lined with moss and/or grass. The nest is usually located on a dry areas in a bog or swamp.