COMMON SANDPIPER 



Totanus /typoleucus 



HE Common Sandpiper is a regular summer visitor to the 

 British Islands, and breeds plentifully on most elevated 

 moorlands which are its favourite haunts, as well as by 

 the banks of our Scottish rivers and on the shores of 

 our lochs, however wild or lonely. On the low-lying parts 

 of the south-east of England it is only known on 

 migration, but it is plentiful in Wales and in most 

 counties north of Derbyshire. It breeds in every county in Scotland, including 

 the Orkneys, Shetlands, and the Outer Hebrides, and is also a common bird 

 in most suitable localities in Ireland. 



The favourite haunts of the Common Sandpiper are the shores of the 

 lochs, ponds, rivers, and mountain streams, on the sandy banks and gravel 

 beds of which it may be generally seen. It is rather an unobtrusive bird, 

 but its cheery call is loud and penetrating. By the side of some little 

 burn it may be seen running nimbly up and down, sometimes flying along 

 the surface of the water, making little rings in the pool with the tips of 

 its wings. Its flight is rapid, and is performed in series of quick beatings 

 alternated by a sort of skimming motion, and it usually alights on some 

 stone, elevating its wings for a few seconds before closing them. It may 

 often be seen perched on some boulder sticking up from the water uttering 

 its call-note, ' -weet-cet-eet-ec-lt 1 and bobbing its head up and down and 

 jerking its tail. 



Each pair of birds seem to have their regular haunts to which they return 

 year after year, and I have known a nest in the same hollow beside a boulder 

 for four years in succession, though it had been robbed on two or three 

 different occasions. On their first arrival the males are very demonstrative in 

 their attentions to the females, often running about round them with drooping 

 wings and keeping up a sort of trill, or flying up into the air in circles and 

 calling incessantly to them. 



The males may often be seen to perch on the tops of wooden fence-posts or 



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