Common Sandpiper

Hidididi! The call of the common sandpiper (Actitis hypoleucos) is loud and piercing. Its habitat is the wild river. There, where the water is continuously swooshing, it must come up with new ideas how to communicate with its fellows. Similar to the pied wagtail it constantly bobs its  body up and down.

Common sandpipers can dive and swim. Often they fly only marginally above the water surface and gliding phases with downward-bent wings are alternated by several shallow flaps. The common sandpiper hides in willow bushes at river banks for nesting. The chicks don’t have much time for sitting around in their nests. They are precocial birds, which leave their scrape soon after hatching, because the floodings from  the Tiroler Lech river can result in changed water levels.

Common sandpipers can be found everywhere in  of Europe. However, it is still  a protected and endangered species. The most important population in Austria is found at the Tiroler Lech river.