The Common Sandpiper — Totanus Hypoleucus (Linnæus)
This inland species, which is a summer migrant to our islands, is common and well distributed along the margins of lakes and on the gravel shores of streams and rivers. In the south and east, where suitable localities are scarce, it only occurs on migration, but elsewhere it breeds regularly.
The note is a plaintive “wheet, wheet, wheet,” generally uttered on the wing. It is a very pleasing bird in its actions, running along the margin of the water and moving its body with a peculiar and delicate see-saw motion. When flying it remains fairly low down and follows the course of the stream, generally keeping over the water. Its food consists of worms, flies, and insects. The nest is placed on the ground, usually near the margin of some water, or on a rocky or gravel islet. The spot chosen is sometimes quite bare, or at other times thickly overgrown with brambles and rough vegetation. For a wading-bird it constructs a fairly substantial nest of grass and leaves, etc., and the eggs are of a pale clay buff, spotted with brown. The young when first hatched are greyish green with longitudinal dark stripes.
In August or early in September they begin to leave their summer-quarters and may then often be found in the salt marshes and on tidal ditches near the shore, but they do not remain there long, and by October they have all left, with the possible exception of a few stragglers that spend the winter in some of the south-western counties.
In summer the upper parts are bronzy brown, irregularly barred and flecked with blackish; sides of the neck and breast grey, with dusky streaks; rest of under parts white. In autumn the upper parts are uniformly brown, or nearly so, and the under parts lighter and with fewer streaks. The young have buff margins to the feathers of the back and lack the dark streaks on the throat. Length 8 in.; bill 1 in.; wing 4·25 in.