Connections: Birds and Crabs, Part VIII

            Another predominant shorebird to visit the shores of Delaware Bay is the small (7-8 inches in length), plump Sanderling.  In summer its back, head and neck is a bright rusty-red with splatterings of black.  It also sports a white belly, black legs and bill.  In flight they show a strong white wingbar.  The winter bird, on the other hand, is very pale, almost white apart from a dark shoulder patch.  This is the source of its species name, alba, which is the Latin for "white."  Sanderlings are distinguished from other wading birds by the absence of a hind toe (Note to potential birders: You have to be really, really close to a Sanderling to see that it doesn’t have this appendage.).  This species includes some of the smallest of all shorebirds, with a weight range of 1.4 to 3.5 ounces.«
            Like Red Knots, Sanderlings are circumpolar breeders wintering primarily in the southern regions of South America, Africa and Australia.  Known as a highly gregarious bird, it will often form enormous flocks on sandy beaches or coastal mudflats.  Its diet consists mainly of small crabs and other tiny invertebrates.  They are also distinguished by a unique “bicycling” motion as they scamper across the beach, stopping frequently to pick up small food items.  A flock of these birds scampering across the beach looks very much like the peloton in the Tour de France as it winds its way around deep valleys and across rich vineyards throughout the three-week race.
            After departing the feast on the Delaware Bay, these birds head for the breeding grounds of the high Arctic region.  There, the female will lay a clutch of three to four eggs in a ground scrape.  Their diet changes considerably while in these polar regions – everything from insects to various kinds of plant material.

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« A sanderling weighing 50 grams (1.7 ounces, or the weight of ten nickels) can eat one horseshoe egg every five seconds for 14 hours a day (that’s 10,080 eggs a day).