Animal Diversity Web

Ge­o­graphic Range

Wood sand­pipers (Tringa glare­ola) are one of the most abun­dant and far-reach­ing avian species. Their range ex­tends from Siberia to Scot­land. Their mi­gra­tion pat­tern is di­rected to­wards the Aleut­ian Is­lands in Alaska. These birds are one of the best mi­grants of their genus. In North Amer­ica, they have been found in lo­ca­tions such as New York and Bermuda. Even though wood sand­pipers are found in these lo­ca­tions, they are na­tive to the Palearc­tic, Ori­en­tal, Ethiopian and Aus­tralian re­gions. Dur­ing win­ter, they are found in parts of Eu­rope, Asia and Africa. This species is plen­ti­ful in the sub-Sa­ha­ran African re­gion, as well as India. In con­trast, their pop­u­la­tion size is min­i­mal in Aus­tralia and Tas­ma­nia. In ad­di­tion, this species may travel to Ice­land, Azores, Bar­ba­dos, Green­land, Faeroes, Madeira and Hawaii on its mi­gra­tory path. (Alder­fer, 2006; "Wood Sand­piper Tringa glare­ola", 2013; Hay­man, et al., 1986; Sib­ley, et al., 2009)

• Biogeographic Regions
• palearctic
  • native
• oriental
  • native
• ethiopian
  • native
• australian
  • native

• Other Geographic Terms
• cosmopolitan

Habi­tat

Wood sand­pipers may be found in mul­ti­ple habi­tats. This species is com­monly found in open areas such as in­land fresh­wa­ter lakes, reser­voirs, muddy marsh­lands, grassy stream banks, sewage farms, wet paddy fields, small tem­po­rary pools, per­ma­nent swamps, flooded grass­lands, ir­ri­ga­tion chan­nels along creeks of salt marshes and man­grove swamps. How­ever, these birds typ­i­cally pur­sue breed­ing in be­tween conif­er­ous forests and tun­dra areas, with ex­ten­sive mossy, sedge or grassy marshes. ("World Bio­mes", 2004; "Wood Sand­piper Tringa glare­ola", 2013)

• Habitat Regions
• temperate
• freshwater

• Terrestrial Biomes
• taiga

• Aquatic Biomes
• lakes and ponds
• rivers and streams
• temporary pools
• brackish water

• Wetlands
• marsh
• swamp

Phys­i­cal De­scrip­tion

Wood sand­pipers have a spot­ted upper body, while their breasts and necks are white with brown stripes. This pat­tern can be seen in other mem­bers of their genus, in­clud­ing soli­tary sand­pipers (Tringa soli­taria) and green sand­pipers (Tringa ochro­pus). Their white su­per­cil­ium ex­tends from be­hind their eyes to the back of their ear-coverts, or from the base of their beak to the back of their ear-coverts. Their beak is short and straight, with a deep olive-green base and av­er­ages 25 to 32 mm in length. Their tar­sus, which is con­nected to their thighs, is 32 to 41 mm in length. Wood sand­pipers' legs are long and vary in color from yel­low to nearly green. Their legs con­nect to slen­der toes, with al­most no web­bing. Their hind toes hardly touch the ground when they stand. Their feet are pro­jected be­yond their tails, which are brown­ish, con­trast­ing the white patch on their rump and mea­sures 45 to 53 mm. Their fea­tures vary at dif­fer­ent stages in their lives. Breed­ing adults have slim bod­ies, the upper por­tion of their feath­ers are white and speck­led, while their breasts and necks are cov­ered with streaks. Their legs are yel­low­ish and their bill has a pale base. Non-breed­ing adults have brown­ish upper parts and do not have black feath­ers. At this stage they are not spot­ted like breed­ing adults, in­stead their breasts have gray­ish streaks. Ju­ve­nile birds are sim­i­lar in ap­pear­ance to non-breed­ing adults, ex­cept their upper parts are a much darker, warmer brown. Ju­ve­niles have more spot­ting and streak­ing on their breasts and by the end of au­tumn, the buff color fades into a whitish color. (Alder­fer, 2006; Alsop III, 2001; Hay­man, et al., 1986; Sib­ley, et al., 2009)

• Other Physical Features
• endothermic
• homoiothermic
• bilateral symmetry

• Sexual Dimorphism
• sexes alike

• Average mass

  159 g

  5.60 oz

• Range length

  190 to 210 mm

  7.48 to 8.27 in

• Range wingspan

  120 to 134 mm

  4.72 to 5.28 in

Re­pro­duc­tion

Wood sand­pipers are monog­a­mous and ter­ri­to­r­ial birds whose breed­ing sea­son oc­curs be­tween May and Mid-July, al­though they begin oc­cu­py­ing their breed­ing habi­tat by late April. Their breed­ing areas in­clude bo­real forests, wet heath­lands, grassy marshes and scrub­lands. Males use their plumage to at­tract mates. When breed­ing, these birds dis­perse into soli­tary pairs. There are typ­i­cally 1 to 10 pairs per km2, or up to 50 pairs per km2 in the for­est tun­dra. This species nests in the win­ter, nest­ing sites may in­clude 50 to over 1,000 nests scat­tered in a par­tic­u­lar area. ("Wood Sand­piper", 2002; Alsop III, 2001; Baicich and Har­ri­son, 2005; "Wood Sand­piper Tringa glare­ola", 2013; Earle and Un­der­hill, 1992)

• Mating System
• monogamous
• cooperative breeder

Wood sand­pipers dis­play ter­ri­to­r­ial be­hav­ior dur­ing breed­ing sea­son. When choos­ing a mate, birds oc­ca­sion­ally lock bills and fight. Once a mate is cho­sen, the pair pro­gresses to­wards the nest­ing pe­riod. Their nests are made of dry leaves and grasses with a de­pres­sion line built into the ground. At times, these birds use the aban­doned tree nests of other birds. This species is sin­gled-brooded and their eggs mea­sure up to 38 x 26 mm. The in­cu­ba­tion pe­riod is shared be­tween the sexes; how­ever, fe­males spend more time in­cu­bat­ing the chicks. After hatch­ing, fe­males leave the nest while males watch over the chicks. This con­tin­ues until the chicks begin fly­ing, which takes ap­prox­i­mately 30 days. Once the chicks are able to fly, they are con­sid­ered in­de­pen­dent and they can leave the nest when the ground is dry. It takes ap­prox­i­mately a year for chicks to fully ma­ture. (Baicich and Har­ri­son, 2005; Hay­man, et al., 1986; "AnAge entry for Tringa glare­ola", 2012; Sib­ley, et al., 2009)

• Key Reproductive Features
• iteroparous
• seasonal breeding
• gonochoric/gonochoristic/dioecious (sexes separate)
• sexual
• oviparous

• Breeding interval

  Wood sandpipers breed seasonally.

• Breeding season

  Wood sandpipers breed from May to August.

• Range eggs per season

  3 to 4

• Average eggs per season

  4

• Range time to hatching

  22 to 23 days

• Range fledging age

  28 to 31 days

• Average time to independence

  1 years

• Average age at sexual or reproductive maturity (female)

  1 years

• Average age at sexual or reproductive maturity (male)

  1 years

After breed­ing in soli­tary pairs, adult wood sand­pipers begin leav­ing the breed­ing areas in late June; they are fol­lowed by the ju­ve­niles in late Au­gust. The pre­co­cial na­ture of this species al­lows it to start for­ag­ing a cou­ple hours after hatch­ing. At least one par­ent, typ­i­cally the male, stays be­hind with the chicks dur­ing the first weeks after hatch­ing. The mother usu­ally leaves the nest in order to fat­ten up and re­gain the en­ergy that was used dur­ing the pro­duc­tion of eggs. In order to watch for preda­tors and take care of the chicks, males stay at the nest­ing site in­stead of mi­grat­ing. ("Wood Sand­piper Tringa glare­ola", 2013; Sib­ley, et al., 2009; "Tringa glare­ola - Wood sand­piper", 2011)

• Parental Investment
• precocial
• male parental care
• female parental care
• pre-hatching/birth
  • provisioning
    • female
  • protecting
    • male
• pre-independence
  • provisioning
    • male
  • protecting
    • male
• post-independence association with parents

Lifes­pan/Longevity

Wood sand­pipers have an adult mor­tal­ity rate of 46%, with a first year mor­tal­ity rate of 83 to 88%. The old­est banded wood sand­piper on record was 9 years and 2 months old. Di­rect mor­tal­ity has been caused by human in­ter­fer­ence in their mi­gra­tion path­ways. ("Tringa glare­ola — Wood Sand­piper", 2013; "AnAge entry for Tringa glare­ola", 2012)

• Average lifespan
  Status: wild

  9.2 years

Be­hav­ior

Wood sand­pipers are full mi­gra­tory birds that travel over­land across Eu­rope and the Mid­dle East. How­ever, dur­ing the breed­ing sea­son, wood sand­pipers stay near north­ern Rus­sia until their young are hatched and on their way to mat­u­ra­tion. Non-breed­ing birds tend to stay in south­ern re­gions through­out the sum­mer. Soli­tary pairs main­tain well-dis­persed nests. After breed­ing, wood sand­pipers mi­grate to trop­i­cal Africa. They may stop at lo­ca­tions north of the Mediter­ranean Sea and fly over the Sa­hara Desert. Dur­ing March and early April, this species de­parts for win­ter­ing grounds. They ei­ther travel in small scat­tered groups of 20 to 50 birds, or large flocks of up to 1,000 in­di­vid­u­als. ("Wood Sand­piper Tringa glare­ola", 2013; Sib­ley, et al., 2009)

• Key Behaviors
• flies
• nocturnal
• motile
• migratory
• solitary
• colonial

Home Range

There is cur­rently lit­tle in­for­ma­tion re­gard­ing the exact home range size of wood sand­pipers.

Com­mu­ni­ca­tion and Per­cep­tion

Wood sand­pipers pro­duce loud vo­cal­iza­tions, with low-fre­quency, repet­i­tive sounds used dur­ing flight, to de­fend their ter­ri­tory or to find a po­ten­tial mate. Their flight call is, 'chiff-if' or 'chiff-if-iff'. They may pro­duce a sharp, repet­i­tive 'chip' alarm call when they are dis­tressed or per­ceive dan­ger. Their song is en­chant­ing and sounds sim­i­lar to the song pro­duced by red­shanks (Tringa tetanus). They also per­form aer­ial and ground dis­plays for breed­ing pur­poses. These dis­plays are well suited for their open habi­tat, as it al­lows them to be viewed by other birds over long dis­tances. (Hay­man, et al., 1986; Sib­ley, et al., 2009)

• Communication Channels
• acoustic

• Other Communication Modes
• choruses

• Perception Channels
• visual
• tactile
• acoustic
• chemical

Food Habits

Wood sand­pipers con­sume di­etary items rang­ing from plants to an­i­mals. Among an­i­mals, this species con­sumes mol­lusks, earth­worms, arthro­pods, crus­taceans, fishes, spi­ders, frogs and lar­val midges. Wood sand­pipers also eat seeds, grains, nuts and algae. ("Tringa glare­ola — Wood Sand­piper", 2013; Székely and Bam­berger, 1992)

• Primary Diet
• carnivore
  • piscivore
  • eats eggs
  • insectivore
  • eats non-insect arthropods
  • molluscivore
  • vermivore
• herbivore
  • granivore
  • algivore

• Animal Foods
• amphibians
• fish
• insects
• terrestrial non-insect arthropods
• mollusks

• Plant Foods
• seeds, grains, and nuts
• algae

Pre­da­tion

Their preda­tors mostly prey on their nests. Their known preda­tors in­clude foxes, weasels, gulls, jaegers, fal­cons and hawks. This may en­cour­age their con­tin­u­ous mi­gra­tory pat­terns. When fal­cons at­tack, they at­tempt to sep­a­rate a bird from its flock. When wood sand­pipers are at­tacked by a preda­tor, they form thick, co­or­di­nated flocks that syn­chro­nously turn at a high ve­loc­ity, form­ing waves of mo­tion. These birds may also feign an in­jury. In such cases, the bird pre­tends to have a bro­ken wing and drag its wing or tail as it slowly flut­ters away from the nest. They also may flash brightly con­trast­ing feath­ers such as wing-bars. This tac­tic is thought to make them look like they have a sec­ond pair of legs. Dur­ing such be­hav­ior, they erect their feath­ers to re­sem­ble fur and squeal, while zigzag­ging along the ground. Wood sand­pipers are also vul­ner­a­ble to the bac­te­ria Clostrid­ium bot­u­linum, which causes avian bot­u­lism and Plas­mod­ium re­lic­tum, which causes avian malaria. ("Mor­tal­ity Threats to Birds - Avian Malaria (Plas­mod­ium re­lic­tum)", 2010; "Wood Sand­piper Tringa glare­ola", 2013; Ehrlich, et al., 1988; Lank, et al., 2003; "Bot­u­lism", 2003; Sib­ley, et al., 2009)

• Known Predators

  • foxes (Canidae)
  • weasles (Mustelidae)
  • gulls (Laridae)
  • parasitic jaegers (Stercorarius parasiticus)
  • peregrine falcons (Falco peregrinus)
  • merlins (Falco columbarius)
  • sharp-shinned hawks (Accipiter striatus)

Ecosys­tem Roles

Wood sand­pipers prey on a va­ri­ety of or­gan­isms in­clud­ing frogs, fishes, in­sects, arach­nids, mol­lusks and earth­worms. Due to their diet, they spread seeds around their ecosys­tem through their feces. They may also host blood par­a­sites. ("Tringa glare­ola — Wood Sand­piper", 2013; Earle and Un­der­hill, 1992)

• Ecosystem Impact
• disperses seeds

Eco­nomic Im­por­tance for Hu­mans: Pos­i­tive

Adult and ju­ve­nile birds are hunted for food by hu­mans. Wild in­di­vid­u­als are also caught and kept as pets. ("Wood Sand­piper Tringa glare­ola", 2013)

• Positive Impacts
• pet trade
• food

Eco­nomic Im­por­tance for Hu­mans: Neg­a­tive

This species has been known to carry the West Nile Virus, which poses a threat to human health. (Rap­pole, et al., 2000)

• Negative Impacts
• injures humans
  • carries human disease

Con­ser­va­tion Sta­tus

This species is cur­rently not at risk of ex­tinc­tion and has sta­ble lev­els of pop­u­la­tion growth. How­ever, habi­tat loss is their largest con­ser­va­tion con­cern, due to the de­te­ri­o­ra­tion of their mi­gra­tion grounds. Human in­ter­fer­ence, such as aer­ial trans­porta­tion, jet skis and hunt­ing are also po­ten­tial threats. Other is­sues that af­fect their con­ser­va­tion sta­tus in­clude pol­lu­tion, cli­mate change, bi­o­log­i­cal re­source use, min­ing, in­va­sive species, dis­ease and agri­cul­ture. This species may be ex­ploited in Eu­ro­pean coun­tries, such as Fin­land, due to wet­land drainage and de­struc­tion of their en­vi­ron­ments. ("Wood Sand­piper Tringa glare­ola", 2013; "Tringa glare­ola — Wood Sand­piper", 2013; Sib­ley, et al., 2009)

• IUCN Red List

  Least Concern

• US Migratory Bird Act

  No special status

• US Federal List

  No special status

• CITES

  No special status

• State of Michigan List

  No special status

Con­trib­u­tors

Amy E. Buet­tner (au­thor), Bridge­wa­ter Col­lege, Joe­mar P. Pazos (au­thor), Bridge­wa­ter Col­lege, Tamara John­stone-Yellin (ed­i­tor), Bridge­wa­ter Col­lege, Leila Si­cil­iano Mar­tina (ed­i­tor), An­i­mal Di­ver­sity Web Staff.

Ref­er­ences

2012. "AnAge entry for Tringa glare­ola" (On-line). AnAge: The An­i­mal Age­ing and Longevity Data­base. Ac­cessed Feb­ru­ary 26, 2013 at http://​genomics.​senescence.​info/​species/​entry.​php?​species=Tringa_​glareola.

Penn State Erie. 2003. "Bot­u­lism" (On-line). Penn­syl­va­nia Sea Grant. Ac­cessed April 03, 2013 at http://​www.​pserie.​psu.​edu/​seagrant/​publications/​fs/​Botulism_​12-2003.​pdf.

Amer­i­can Bird Con­ser­vancy. 2010. "Mor­tal­ity Threats to Birds - Avian Malaria (Plas­mod­ium re­lic­tum)" (On-line). Amer­i­can Bird Con­ser­vancy. Ac­cessed April 02, 2013 at http://​www.​abcbirds.​org/​conservationissues/​threats/​disease/​avian_​malaria.​html.

2011. "Tringa glare­ola - Wood sand­piper" (On-line). Gate­way To Wild­pro Mul­ti­me­dia. Ac­cessed Feb­ru­ary 24, 2013 at http://​wildpro.​twycrosszoo.​org/​S/​0AvCiconiif/​Scolopacidae/​tringa/​Tringa_​glareola/​Tringa_​glareola.​htm.

De­part­ment of Sus­tain­abil­ity, En­vi­ron­ment, Water, Pop­u­la­tion and Com­mu­ni­ties. 2013. "Tringa glare­ola — Wood Sand­piper" (On-line). Ac­cessed Feb­ru­ary 23, 2013 at http://​www.​environment.​gov.​au/​cgi-bin/​sprat/​public/​publicspecies.​pl?​taxon_​id=829#​life_​cycle.

BirdLife In­ter­na­tional. 2013. "Wood Sand­piper Tringa glare­ola" (On-line). BirdLife In­ter­na­tional. Ac­cessed Feb­ru­ary 23, 2013 at http://​www.​birdlife.​org/​datazone/​speciesfactsheet.​php?​id=3025.

2002. "Wood Sand­piper" (On-line). What Bird.​com. Ac­cessed Feb­ru­ary 27, 2013 at http://​identify.​whatbird.​com/​obj/​998/​behavior/​Wood_​Sandpiper.​aspx.

2004. "World Bio­mes" (On-line). Kids Do Ecol­ogy. Ac­cessed Feb­ru­ary 24, 2013 at http://​kids.​nceas.​ucsb.​edu/​biomes/​.

Alder­fer, J. 2006. Na­tional Ge­o­graphic com­plete birds of North Amer­ica. Wash­ing­ton, D.C.: Na­tional Ge­o­graphic So­ci­ety.

Alsop III, F. 2001. Smith­son­ian birds of North Amer­ica. New York: DK Pub­lish­ing, Inc..

Baicich, P., C. Har­ri­son. 2005. Nests, Eggs, and Nestlings of North Amer­i­can Birds. Prince­ton, New Jer­sey: Prince­ton Uni­ver­sity Press.

Earle, R., L. Un­der­hill. 1992. Ab­sence of haema­to­zoa in some Charadri­iformes breed­ing in the Taimyr Penin­sula, Rus­sia. Ardea, 81: 21-24.

Ehrlich, P., D. Dobkin, D. Wheye. 1988. "Sand­pipers, So­cial Sys­tems, and Ter­ri­to­ri­al­ity" (On-line). Ac­cessed Feb­ru­ary 27, 2013 at http://​www.​stanford.​edu/​group/​stanfordbirds/​text/​essays/​Sandpipers,_So­cial.html.

Hay­man, P., J. Marchant, T. Prater. 1986. Shore­birds: An iden­ti­fi­ca­tion guide. Boston Mass­a­chu­setts: Houghton Mif­flin Com­pany.

Lank, D., R. But­ler, J. Ire­land, R. Yden­berg. 2003. Ef­fects of pre­da­tion dan­ger on mi­gra­tion strate­gies of sand­pipers. OIKOS Syn­the­siz­ing Ecol­ogy, 103: 303-319.

Rap­pole, J., S. Der­rick­son, H. Zdenek. 2000. Mi­gra­tory birds and the spread of West Nile virus in the West­ern hemi­sphere. Emerg­ing In­fec­tious Dis­eases, 6:4: 319-328.

Sib­ley, D., C. El­ph­ick, J. Dun­ning. 2009. The Sib­ley Guide to Bird Life & Be­hav­ior. New York: Knopf Dou­ble­day Pub­lish­ing Group.

Székely, T., Z. Bam­berger. 1992. Pre­da­tion of Waders (Charadrii) on Prey Pop­u­la­tions: An Ex­clo­sure Ex­per­i­ment. Jour­nal of An­i­mal Ecol­ogy, 61, No. 2: 447-456.