Sanderling Images

Sanderling Images, Facts and Information:

Calidris alba

• Sanderlings are small sandpipers with black legs, stout black bills and they appear very plump. They are very pale and grayish in nonbreeding plumage while in breeding plumage they are black, white and rufous.
• Sanderlings are migratory. They breed in the tundra of the high Arctic in Canada and rarely Alaska. Their breeding habitat includes island and peninsulas that have moist sites with plentiful vegetation. Winter habitat for Sanderlings are coastal areas of North, Central and South America and the Caribbean.
• The diet of Sanderlings includes crabs, amphipods and small crustaceans, polychaete worms, mollusks, and horseshoe crab eggs, flying insects, beetles, butterflies and moths. They will also eat plant material when other prey is not available.
• Sanderlings lay 3 to 4 eggs which hatch in 24 to 31 days. They are monogamous but at times the females will breed with more than one male. Both sexes have incubation patches. Some times the female will leave the first male to incubate the first brood and she will incubate a second brood.
• A group of Sanderlings can be called a “grain” of sanderlings.
• The oldest Sanderling was recorded to be just over 13 years.

I hope you enjoy viewing my Sanderling photos.