Purple sandpiper Calidris maritima

Identification Tips:

• Length: 7.5 inches
• Small shorebird
• Medium-sized, thin, dark bill with yellow base
• Yellow legs
• Black patch on rump extending onto tail
• Thin, white wing stripe
• Sexes similar

Adult alternate:

• Dark gray streaked head
• Pale indistinct supercilium with dark cheeks and crown
• Black back feathers and wing coverts with thin white edges
• Dark gray breast with dark streaks and spots extending onto white underparts

Adult basic:

• Dark gray head without darker streaks
• Dark gray breast with streaks extending onto flanks
• Very dark back with thin gray edges

Juvenile:

• Similar to adult alternate
• Black back feathers and wing coverts with neat white edges
• Dark streaking on breast

Similar species:

This sandpiper is most likely to be found on rocks in coastal areas. Other small shorebirds are paler and lack the yellow legs and yellow-based bill. In flight, turnstones and sanderlings have more white in the wings.

Length and wingspan from: Robbins, C.S., Bruun, B., Zim, H.S., (1966). Birds of North America. New York: Western Publishing Company, Inc.