PurpleSandpiper

Purple Sandpiper Calidris maritime

Wintering along the rocky shores of the Atlantic coast, this stout, short legged shorebird has the northern most winter range of any shorebird. It is mostly slat-gray in its winter plumage with a faint purplish gloss and has no purple in its mating plumage, despite its name. Preferring rocky, barren northern tundra for breeding territory it also is found on the wave washed coastal rocks and jetties of the Atlantic coast and sometimes found in early winter along the Great Lakes.

The Purple Sandpiper’s diet includes many plant materials such as berries, moss, seeds, and leaves, unlike most sandpipers. Foraging for food by sight it depends on mostly insects and small mollusks.

This monogamous sandpiper is remote from the impact of humans and its populations are stable and perhaps increasing.

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