Breeding birds: 56 records a year
Family: Sandpipers & allies
In breeding plumage, the adult male pectoral sandpiper has a dark brown mantle, scapulars, and tertials with chestnut and buff fringes and white tips on the feathers. The wing coverts are grey-brown with pale fringes, and the flight feathers are black with narrow white tips on the secondaries. The centre of the rump, uppertail coverts and tail are dark brown. The sides of the rump are white and the outer rectrices are grey-brown.
The breast is dark brown with heavy buff streaks, the belly is white and the flanks are streaked. The underwing coverts and axillaries are white with slight grey spots.
On the head the crown is dark brown with paler streaks, and the lores and ear coverts are brown. There may be a dull white supercilium. The bill is dark brown with a paler base, the eyes are dark brown, and the legs and feet are dull green, brown, or yellow.
In non-breeding plumage, pectoral sandpipers are plainer and duller with browner upperparts and a more distinct supercilium.
Females are duller still with a paler breast and they are smaller than the male.
Juvenile pectoral sandpipers are similar to breeding adults with an obvious white supercilium. The upperparts have white, buff, and chestnut fringes to the feathers, which form a V-shape across the mantle and scapulars. The streaks on the breast are narrower.
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Pectoral sandpipers breed in June and July. The nest is placed near water in a well-drained area covered with sedges and grasses. The female builds the nest which is a concealed scrape in the ground lined with grass and leaves. The male usually leaves the area before the eggs hatch.
Pectoral sandpipers lay 4 white, olive, or buff eggs with dark brown blotches which are incubated by the female alone for 21-23 days. The chicks are precocial and leave the nest a few hours after hatching. They can feed themselves but stay near the female for about 10 days and fledge at 3 weeks.
During breeding season, pectoral sandpipers feed mainly on invertebrates including insects, beetles, and spiders. During migration they will also take larger insects such as grasshoppers and crickets. In the winter they eat insects, molluscs, crustaceans, spiders, algae, and seeds. The forage by probing with the entire length of their bill while slowly walking, or by pecking insects from the surface of the ground.
Pectoral sandpipers are scarce passage migrants and can mostly be seen during autumn although a few turn up in spring too. Look out for them in freshwater wetlands.
Britain's Birds
RSPB Handbook Of British Birds
Collins Bird Guide
Male pectoral sandpipers have an inflatable throat sac which expands and contracts during display flights producing a series of hollow booming sounds.
