Stats

Lifespan

10-16 yrs

Size

Small

Diet

Carnivore

Activity

Diurnal

Social

Flock

Biome

Coastal beach

Range

Worldwide

Movement

Running

Breeding

Egg-laying

Defense

Camouflage

Status

Common

About

A small, pale sandpiper famous for its frantic dashes along the swash zone, chasing retreating waves to snatch tiny invertebrates before sprinting back from the next one. Sanderlings breed in the high Arctic tundra but spend most of the year on beaches nearly worldwide, making them one of the most widely distributed shorebirds on Earth.

Life cycle

1. 1.
   egg

   A clutch of eggs is incubated in the nest, kept warm by a brooding parent until the chicks pip free.
2. 2.
   hatchling

   A naked or downy hatchling is fed in the nest by its parents.
3. 3.
   juvenile

   A feathered juvenile fledges from the nest and learns to fly and forage.
4. 4.
   adult

   Fully grown with adult plumage.

Learn more

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Taxonomy

Kingdom

Animalia

Phylum

Chordata

Class

Aves

Order

Charadriiformes

Family

Scolopacidae

Genus

Calidris

Species

Calidris alba