Purple
Sandpiper (Calidris maritima)
Few
waders are as closely restricted to a particular habitat as C. maritima, which is fundamentally a
bird of the very edge of the surf, where it searches through wave-washed,
seaweed-covered rocks for invertebrates.
It
breeds on the Arctic islands of Canada, Greenland, Iceland, Svalbard, northwest
Scandinavia and Russia. In Europe, the British Isles are on the extreme
southwestern edge of its range, with up to four pairs breeding in Scotland since the late 1970s. It winters regularly at a small number of sites in Sussex, where it is a
scarce winter visitor and passage migrant, with only Newhaven Harbour
consistently holding a wintering flock during the last 50 years, where they are
found on the harbour arms.
References:
Paul,
N. (2014). Purple Sandpiper. The Birds of Sussex. Thetford: British
Trust for Ornithology (BTO) Books on behalf of the Sussex Ornithological
Society, pp. 258-259.
Curson,
J. (1996). Purple Sandpiper. Birds of Sussex. Sussex Ornithological
Society, pp. 256-258.
