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  Profile

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  In flight

Cranes & Waders

White-rumped Sandpiper

Calidris fuscicollis

• common
• 28 km/h
• Starter
• Vulnerable

Flies nonstop from the Arctic to Argentina. Your message takes the longest single hop in shorebird-dom.

Population

~6.2 million mature individuals (range ~3.27–9.07 million), decreasing

Habitat

Breeds on wet Arctic tundra; during migration and winter uses mudflats, beaches, river banks, flooded fields, salt marshes, and estuaries, mostly below 450 m elevation

Fun fact

The White-rumped Sandpiper undertakes one of the longest migrations of any bird in the Americas, flying from the Canadian Arctic to southern South America and sometimes covering roughly 2,500 miles in a single nonstop flight.

Range

Breeds in Arctic Canada and northernmost Alaska; migrates through eastern North America and over the Atlantic/Amazon basin to winter mainly along the coasts of southern South America (Patagonia, Argentina, Chile)

Diet

Aquatic invertebrates — molluscs, crustaceans, polychaete/annelid worms, and insects — plus seeds and moss taken opportunistically

Size

0.165 m

Wingspan

0.37 m

Lifespan

7 years