Studies of less familiar birds 164 Wood Sandpiper

I, J. Ferguson-Lees

Photographs by J. B. and S. Bottomley

Plates 13-17

The Wood Sandpiper Tringa glareola appeared in this series as long ago as 1947 (Brit Birds, 40: 175, plates 19-21), though some photo­graphs of tameness at a ground nest were published in 1961 (Brit Birds, 54: 135-136, plates 22, 24, 25). Unlike its allies, the Green Sandpiper T, ochropus of Eurasia and the Solitary Sandpiper T, soli-taria of North America, the Wood Sandpiper usually breeds on the ground and seldom in old nests of other birds. Blair (1961a) was able to cite only six instances of tree nesting in Sweden and none at all in Norway, although this habit is rather more common in Siberia, as he pointed out, and there have been other Scandinavian records since then (e.g. Brandberg 1966). We are therefore glad to have this opportunity of publishing the fine series by Mr and Mrs Bottomley on plates 13-17 of a tree site in Finland in June 1970.

The forest edge where this nest was found is shown on plate 13b and the tree, a small Norway spruce Picea abies about 20 yards inside, on plate 14. The nest was ten to twelve feet above the ground and, as is clear from plate 15, quite near the main trunk. Plates T6 and 17 are close-ups of one of the Wood Sandpipers incubating in what can be seen to be an old nest of the Song Thrush Turdus philomelos. Other nests in which the species has been found breeding include those of Great Grey Shrike L.anius excubitor, Waxwing Bombycilla garrulus, Magpie Pica pica, Turtle Dove Streptopelia turtur and, especially, Fieldfare Turdus pilaris; no material is added by the waders in such cases. Mr and Mrs Bottomley found Wood Sandpipers common in the area of their nest, but most pairs seemed to be breeding in the open marshland or in clearings in the forest, as is typical.

The pylon hide on plate 14 was built over several days and the in­cubating bird remained on the nest through most of the construction, despite sawing and banging only a couple of yards away. As Mr Bottomley put it, 'Normally bird-photographers prefer their subject to be absent while hides are moved or built, but short of lifting them from their eggs it would not have been possible to persuade these Wood Sandpipers to depart.' The original mud lining of the nest (plate 16) was still more or less intact, but otherwise the structure was dilapi­dated and insecure. The birds approached the nest tree by fluttering from branch to branch 30 feet above the ground.

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P L A T E I J . Wood Sandpiper Tringa glareola, Finland, July 1970: note characteristic way in which waders perch on tree tops without grasping the twigs. Below, nesting habitat, Finland, June 1970: the nest on plates 14-17 was twenty yards inside the wood at the centre of the picture (pages 114-117) {photos: J. B. and S. Bottomley)

P L A T E 14. Nesting site of Wood Sandpiper Tringa glareola, Finland, June 1970. The nest was ten to twelve feet above the ground in the thin spruce in the centre, at a point just beneath the top of the hide (page 114) {photo: J. B. and S. Bottomlej)

P L A T E 15. Wood Sandpiper incubating in old nest of Song Thrush Turdus philomelos close to the main trunk. Green Sandpipers Tringa ochropus commonly nest in such places, but this species much less often (page 114) {photo: J. B. and S. Bottomley)

P L A T E S 16 and 17. Close-ups of the nest on plate 15 (note mud lining) as the Wood Sandpiper settles on its four greenish-buff eggs blotched with purplish-brown and underlying grey (page 115). In summer this species has a finely streaked head and is otherwise brown above boldly marked with white {photos: J. B. and S. Bottomley)

P L A T E S 18 and 19. Spotted Sandpiper Tringa macularia, Cornwall, August 1970, and, below right, Common Sandpiper T. hypoleucos, Cornwall, August 1969. The Spotted is sunbathing above and preening below. These photos emphasise the distinctions between the two species in autumn (pages 124-125) {photos: J. B. and S. Bottomley)

P L A T E 20. Pectoral Sandpiper Calidris tnelanotos near nest (just visible on right above), Alaska, 1950. Note the sharply demarcated streaking on the breast and the contrasted pattern and V of buffish stripes on the upper-parts. The 243 British and Irish records in 1958-67 are analysed on pages 93-103 {photos: Niall Rankin)

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Most nests of Wood Sandpipers are no more than a neat scrape in grass, heather or moss, lined with a few grasses and dead leaves, among open tundra vegetation or in clearings in pine or birch forest, sometimes on a slight hillock and often by a small birch, alder or willow sapling. Like other Tringa, this species normally lays four eggs (rarely three). These range from cream or pale green through olive or brownish to deep buff, variably marked with sepia or purplish-brown and underlying grey; many eggs are heavily blotched, par­ticularly at the larger end where the pigments can form a solid cap.

The Wood Sandpiper breeds from 51 °N to well inside the arctic circle at 71 °N. Though eggs have been found as early as 2nd May, few are laid before the second or third weeks of that month even in the south of the range, while north of the arctic circle many clutches are not complete before mid-June and some late ones not until early July. Both sexes have incubation patches and both sit on the eggs for 22 or 23 days (Kirchner i960). Mr and Mrs Bottomley did not see a change­over during eight hours in their hide in Finland (and the incubating bird did not even turn the eggs), but Kirchner watched this at one nest several times. The relieving bird would fly in, calling 'gip gip . . . ' , to perch on a stunted pine 30 yards away. There it would call again— with a sound likened to the whistle of a Curlew Numenius arquata—• before flying down and running to the nest which the sitting bird had meanwhile vacated silently before towering up into the air and singing. The song, uttered by both sexes, is a liquid and musical series of fluty notes, utterly different from the rather hoarse 'chiff-iff-iff' flight call and perhaps best rendered as 'liro-liro-liro-teela-teela-teela-oodl-oodl-oodP with a quality reminiscent of a Woodlark L.ullula arborea. It often accompanies the display flight (see The Handbook),

Like most waders, young Wood Sandpipers leave the nest as soon as they are dry, and the family may be 100 yards away within 24 hours. Some nests are in tussocks of vegetation surrounded by deep water and even these are quickly vacated soon after the eggs hatch, the chicks being able to swim from the outset. I know of no observation of young Wood Sandpipers leaving a tree nest, but when newly hatched they weigh only eight to ten grams (Kirchner 1956) and presumably they tumble to the ground without injury like the chicks of Green Sandpipers and tree-nesting ducks. Blair (1961b) described how young Green Sand­pipers 'barely half an hour out of the shell' jumped to the ground from a hole in a broken poplar and how three young in another brood (the fourth egg was still hatching) dropped 30 feet from their nest in an old squirrel's drey.

The male usually takes the greater share in looking after the young. Indeed, at one of Kirchner's nests the presumed female left every­thing to the male from the time the eggs started hatching. Sometimes

116 Wood Sandpiper studies

the female does guard the brood as closely as the male for the first few days, but then she usually leaves the territory and he remains in sole charge. If disturbed with young, the male (and the female too, if still present) is very demonstrative. He flies round overhead, perches on trees and flutters across the ground with tail spread, continuously uttering his metallic 'chip chip . . .' alarm; if the young are small, one of the parents may return to cover them only a few feet from a human intruder. Only one brood is reared.

The Wood Sandpiper has a wide range in northern Eurasia from Norway, Sweden, Denmark and north Germany through Finland, the Baltic States, Poland and Russia, and thence right across Siberia to Anadyr, Kamchatka, north Manchuria and Amurland. It extends south to the northern Ukraine, Semipalatinsk, Altai and north Mongolia, but is no longer found in the rest of the Ukraine, the Kirghiz Steppes or the northern Caucasus as stated in The Handbook. Its southern limits may be moving northwards—in the early part of the century it used even to breed in the Netherlands, but has not done so since 1936 {Avifauna van Nederland, 1970)—while it appears to be increasing in the northern forest belt where it is the most abundant and characteristic of all waders. Merikallio (1958) put the Finnish population at 180,000 pairs, twice as high as the next most numerous species, the Snipe Gallinago gallinago.

The Wood Sandpiper migrates through most of Eurasia to winter throughout Africa from the Mediterranean region to Cape Province and from India and China through Indonesia to Australia. In Britain it has always been commonest on the east and south-east coasts on autumn passage from July to mid-October, but it now occurs in most English counties and more locally in Scotland (where it remains rare in the north-west) and Ireland (where it was a vagrant up to 1950, but is now annual in increasing numbers). Recently, also, this species has been recorded much more often on spring passage from mid-April to early June. Migration on a national or a European scale has been dis­cussed by Nisbet (1956), Hoffmann (1957) and Myhrberg (1961).

The Wood Sandpiper was the third of the series of Scandinavian species which have started colonising Scotland within the last 20 years: preceded only by the Redwing Turdus iliacus and Osprey Pandion haliaetus, it has been followed by the Snowy Owl Nyctea scandiaca, Fieldfare and, on an as yet impermanent basis, Goldeneye Bucephala clangula, Green Sandpiper, Bluethroat Luscinia svecica and so on. Wood Sandpipers may have bred in Norfolk some years before 1846 and certainly did so in Northumberland in 1853 (perhaps again in 1857), but then there were no further nesting records for just over 100 years. Since 1959, however, they have been proved to breed in Scotland every year: just a few pairs between Sutherland and north Perthshire. One hopes that the population will continue to develop.

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REFERENCES

BLAIR, H. M. S. 1961a and b. 'Breeding habits' (of Wood and Green Sandpipers) in The Birds of the British Isles by D. A. Bannerman. Edinburgh and London, vol 10: 42-48, 67-73.

BRANDBERG, S. 1966. 'Wood Sandpiper (Tringa glareola) breeding in an old nest of Song Thrush' (photo and English summary). Var Fdgelvarld, 25: 355-354.

HOFFMANN, L. 1957. 'Le passage d'automne du Chevalier sylvain (Tringa glareola) en France méditerraneenne'. Alauda, 25: 30-42.

KIRCHNER, H. 1956. 'Zur Oekologie und Brutbiologie des Bruchwasserlaufers (Tringa glareold) in Schleswig-Holstein'. / . Orn., 97: 21-30.

----------- 1960. 'Beobachtungen an einer Brut des Bruchwasserlaufers (Tringa glareola L.)' J. Orn., 101: 340-345.

MERIKALLIO, E. 1958. Finnish Birds: their Distribution and Numbers. Helsinki. MYHRBERG, H. 1961. 'The migration of the Wood Sandpiper through Europe'

(English summary). Vår Fageharld, 20: 115-145.

NISBET,I .C. T. 1956. 'Records of Wood Sandpipers in Britain in the autumn of 1952'.

Brit. Birds, 49: 49-62.