Scientific name: Calidris alpina (Linnaeus, 1758)
Bird group: Waders
Field characters. 19 cm. Most ubiquitous of shorebirds. A small wader with long black bill, down-curved at tip. Adult in summer with chestnut crown and upperparts, streaked black, grey-white ear-coverts and throat, streaked chest, black patch on breast, and greyish belly. In winter without black breast patch, and with brownish-grey upperparts and grey-white underparts. Juvenile like summer adult, with black spots on belly resembling adult's black patch, but upperparts paler and more regularly patterned. Highly gregarious, often in flocks of hundreds. When flying, flocks flash alternately dark and white due to movement in great unison. Characteristic "hunched up" foraging behaviour.
Voice. Song is a rich purring trill, uttered in flight and on ground; note when flushed a shrill, nasal "trii".
Distribution. Fairly common breeding bird in northern Europe; rather rare elsewhere. Locally very common winter visitor and passage migrant.
Habitat. Breeds on high moors, marshes with pools and saltmarshes; outside breeding season predominantly on mudflats, but also along estuaries and freshwater lakes.
Food. Mainly invertebrates, such as insects and worms. Prey obtained either by pecking from surface or by probing, depending on substrate and food.