Juan Arizaga

The species occupies for breeding shores of rivers, ponds, lakes and coastal areas, preferably with pebbles, sand or rocks. Outside breeding season it occurs on variety of fresh-and saltwater habitats, generally avoiding large coastal mudflats (Van Gils et al. 2020).

Species’ breeding range extends from W Europe to E Asia. It occurs in most of Europe, the strongholds being in European Russia and Fennoscandia (Keller et al. 2020).

Long-distance migrant. European populations winter mostly in sub-Saharan Africa.

The overall population trend is declining, some populations are stable and others have unknown trends. Evaluated as “Least Concern” (BirdLife International 2021).

Season of assessment

B

Population trendDecreasing
Population size
(min-max, best estimate)		2060000-2980000,2460000
Red List categoryLC
Franks, S., Fiedler, W., Arizaga, J., Jiguet, F., Nikolov, B., van der Jeugd, Ambrosini, R, Aizpurua, O., Bairlein, F., Clark, J., Fattorini, N, Hammond, M., Higgins, D, Levering, H., Skellorn, W., Spina, F, Thorup, K. Walker, J., Woodward, I. and Baillie, S.R. (1) (2022) Online Atlas of the movements of European bird populations. https://migrationatlas.org EURING/CMS (1) Principal investigator
Map

Overall Connectivity for Common Sandpiper

General movement pattern follows NE – SW direction. Birds breeding in Scandinavia are encountered mostly in C, W & SW Europe, while the population from Finland (and the neighbouring NW Russia (Noskov et al. 2016)) migrates mostly through C Europe and C Mediterranean region. Breeding populations from C & W Europe largely take SW routes, while the UK population migrates mainly N-S. W Africa (especially the Gulf of Guinea) is an important wintering area for the birds marked in N, NW, W, C & SC Europe. Equatorial Africa holds few records from the eastern part of C Europe.

The populations breeding in European Russia overwinter mainly from Equatorial (DR Congo) to E Africa (Kenya) and S to Zimbabwe (Ilichev 1985, Underhill et al. 1999).

Ringing recovery data from SE & E Europe and from Africa S of the equator are very limited.

Recoveries by Condition for Common Sandpiper

Most encounters are obtained after the mid-1960s. They come mainly from Jul-Aug – 66% combined (late breeding season and early autumn migration). Most encounters in Apr-Jul are based primarily on adults and first-year birds while those from Aug-Sep – mainly juveniles. Majority of encounters (ca. 84%) are recorded in C, NW, N and W Europe (38, 16, 16 and 14% respectively). The encounters based on dead birds decreased markedly over the years: from 64% pre-1960 to less than 1% after 1991; those based on alive birds considerably increased from 30% before 1960 to 95% after 1991. The latter is mostly due to ringing recoveries, and especially to colour mark records (17% of all encounters). Shooting as а factor has been largely reduced from 38% pre-1960 to less than 1% after 1991.

Annual Movements for Common Sandpiper

Post-breeding dispersal and autumn migration start in Jul, adults usually precede juveniles. The difference between age median dates varies between 11 days in SE Sweden (Iwajomo, Hedenström, 2011) and 50 days in E Spain (Josa et al. 2019). Most post-breeding records in Europe are from Aug – early Sep. The birds stay in their African wintering areas mostly Oct-Feb; the earliest ringing encounters from W Africa are in Sep. Spring migration starts in Mar and the breeding grounds are reached mostly in Apr-May (at this time some birds still present in NW Africa).

Tracked birds from Scotland wintered in coastal W Africa (mainly Guinea-Bissau) Oct-Feb. The southward migration took on average 17.5 days, while the northward – 16 days; staging areas were used in Morocco, Iberian Peninsula and France. The breeding sites were reached in early May (Bates et al. 2012, Summers et al. 2019).

Connectivity by Month by Region for Common Sandpiper

Eurasian-African migrant, migrating on a broad front; small numbers usually winter in W & S Europe, and the Middle East (Van Gils et al. 2020). Dispersal movements and autumn migration start as early as mid-summer, juveniles following the adults about a month later. The main passage through Europe is in late summer and early autumn. African wintering grounds are usually occupied between mid-autumn and late winter. The European breeding sites are reached mainly mid- to late spring.

Most of the foreign recoveries obtained in the Iberian Peninsula during autumn migration originated from C and N Europe (35 and 34% respectively), followed by W (19%) and NW Europe (12%) (Arcas 1999).

A hopping migration strategy has been suggested based on data from the Mediterranean region (Baccetti et al 1992, de Elgea & Arizaga 2016).

Most of the distant (>=50 km) recoveries are less than 3000km away (but some are nearly 7000km).

Boris Nikolov

References

Statistics Map
N records N individuals N recoveries
Mapped data*
Total available data
*Mapped data include only distant (>= 50 km) recoveries
References Map
1985 . Migrations of birds of Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. Gruiformes – Charadriiformes. (in Russian). Nauka, MoscowEditor(s): Ilichev, V.
2020 . European Breeding Bird Atlas 2: Distribution, Abundance and Change. European Bird Census Council & Lynx Edicions, BarcelonaEditor(s): Keller, V., S. Herrando, P. Voříšek, et al.
Arcas, J. 1999 . Origin of Common Sandpipers Actitis hypoleucos captured in the Iberian peninsula during their autumn migration. Wader Study Group Bull. 89: 56–59
Baccetti, N., De Faveri, A., Serra, L. 1992 . Spring migration and body condition of Common Sandpipers Actitis hypoleucos on a small Mediterranean island. Ringing & Migration 13: 90–94
Bates, B., Etheridge, B., Elkins, N., Fox, J. & Summers, R.W. 2012 . Pre-migratory change in mass and the migration track of a Common Sandpiper Actitis hypoleucos from Scotland. Wader Study Group Bull. 119: 149–154
BirdLife International 2021 . Species factsheet: Actitis hypoleucos. Downloaded from http://www.birdlife.org on 26/12/2021
de Elgea, A.O., Arizaga, J2016 . Fuel load, fuel deposition rate and stopover duration of the Common Sandpiper Actitis hypoleucos during the autumn migration. Bird Study 63: 262–267
Iwajomo, S.B., Hedenström, A. 2011 . Migration patterns and morphometrics of Common Sandpipers Actitis hypoleucos at Ottenby, southeastern Sweden. Ringing & Migration 26: 38–47
Josa, P., Feliu, J., Bertolero, A. 2019 . Autumn migration of the Common Sandpiper Actitis hypoleucos in the Ebro Delta Natural Park. Wader Study 126: 49–56
Noskov, G. A., Rymkevich, T. A., Gaginskaya, A. R. 2016 . Migration of Birds on Northwest Russia. Non-Passerines. ANO LA “Professional”, Saint Petersburg
Summers, R. W., De Raad, A. L., Bates, B., Etheridge, B., & Elkins, N. 2019 . Non-breeding areas and timing of migration in relation to weather of Scottish-breeding common sandpipers Actitis hypoleucos. Journal of Avian Biology 50: 1–11
Underhill, L.G., Tree, AJ., Oschadleus, H.D. & Parker, V. 1999 . Review of Ring Recoveries of Waterbirds in Southern Africa. Avian Demography Unit, University of Cape Town, Cape Town
Van Gils, J., P. Wiersma, and G. M. Kirwan 2020 . Common Sandpiper (Actitis hypoleucos), version 1.0. In Birds of the World Link to Article (DOI: https://doi.org/10.2173/bow.comsan.01 ) Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY, USA

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