By Sally Siko
Finally saw my first Purple Sandpiper last month while birding in the OBX.
It was so exciting to get a great look at this lovely little bird as it hunted for a snack on the pier abutments next to the cove of Oregon Inlet.
Purple Sandpipers are not a common sight along our coast. I’d been trying to see one for years but just hadn’t been at the right place so laying eyes on this one felt really good!
Purple Sandpipers breed farther north than any other birds that stay on the shore in the winter.
In the winter, they are found from the coast of Quebec and Newfoundland in Canada to the coast of New England, and as shown here as far south as the Carolinas.
They are even found along the eastern coasts of the Great Lakes in the central US.
Outside the Americas, their breeding range extends through Greenland, Iceland, Norway, and from northern Norway to southern Belgium. They also live in parts of Europe, including Faeroe Islands, Britain, Ireland, Norway, eastern Russia, the coast of the Baltic Sea, Denmark, western and northern Germany, the Netherlands, and Belgium.
Unlike other North Carolina shorebirds they are found exclusively on wave-washed rocks and bridge pilings.
This makes them a little easier to rule out an ID from a distance if you’re viewing a similar looking species on the beach.
Yet, because their habitat is restricted to a handful of jetty and rock pile sites along several hundred miles of our coastline, it is believed that only 30-60 individuals are found in the state each year.
Some of the best locations to spot a Purple Sandpiper in the Carolina’s include the basin pond at Fort Fisher, the rock jetty’s and pier at Oregon Inlet, Ft.Macon SP in NC and the jetty at Huntington Beach SP in SC.
They’ll stick around from now through early April so you’ve got plenty of time to see one
Photos by @sally_siko of @bestlife_birding captured on my mighty mirrorless monster, the @canonusa #R5