BIRDPEX – protected bird species, Broad-billed sandpiper

Broad-billed sandpiper (Calidris falcinellus) The broad-billed sandpiper belongs to a relatively large group of small to medium-sized birds called sandpipers or waders and is characterized by long legs and bills adapted to living along muddy shoals and sandy banks. While there, they feed on invertebrates hidden in the mud or sand. Due to the relatively low presence of such habitats in Croatia, there are not many of these birds in our country, while on the northern coasts of the European continent they are widespread and live in large flocks. Sandpipers have been known as absolute masters of the air, covering huge distances on migratory journeys. Broad-billed sandpiper is a rather small sandpiper, approximately 16 to 18 cm long. Like most sandpipers, it has got plain grey, brown and white feathers. It nests in the subarctic lowlands to the north of the tundra, from the Scandinavian Peninsula to the west, where they are most numerous, and partly along northern Siberia and almost all of the eastern continental shelf. In the tundra, this sandpiper inhabits wet habitats such as bogs and other types of peatlands. As it migrates, it can be found on shallow, muddy shores along lakes, in marine lagoons and shallow wetlands. Broad-billed sandpiper is a migratory bird in Croatia – it can be spotted occasionally and in low numbers during the autumn migration. For example, from 2005 to 2016, only seven of these species were recorded in Croatia, mainly in resting areas along the Adriatic coast such as Kolansko Blato, Nin saltworks, and the estuary of the Neretva river. It winters on the coasts in the areas with pronounced changes in the tide, in an extremely wide area of East Africa, along the southern coast of the Arabian Peninsula, India, Sri Lanka, Southeast Asia, the Philippines, Indonesia and Australia. It spends about six months in the wintering grounds. This tiny cosmopolitan will spend about a month in the spring and about two months in the fall traveling over 6,000 kilometers between its nesting and wintering grounds. It will use the remaining three months of the year for nesting and rapid raising of three to four hatchlings during the short Arctic summer. Davor Ćiković, Research Associate Institute for Ornithology of the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts (HAZU)