Least
Sandpiper, Calidris minutilla
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![]() Smaller size, yellow legs, a typically hunched "mouse-like" posture, and less colorful breeding plumage distinguish the Least Sandpiper from the other "peep" often seen with it, the Western Sandpiper. Above, a breeding plumage bird migrating through in Spring. |
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![]() The birds above and below show the more worn breeding plumage of adults in Fall migration, with very little rufous color in contrast to Fall migrant Western Sandpipers. |
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![]() Above and the two below, juvenile Least Sandpipers. They have more rufous coloring than Fall adults, less striping on the breast, fresh buff linings on upperpart feathers, and white linings on the scapulars that create a horizontal white line along the back. The bird just below is especially colorful, but the angle of view and the feather arrangement doesn't show the white line as clearly; the one next down is less colorful, but shows the fresh buff linings and the white line. |
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![]() A flock of Least Sandpipers mostly in breeding plumage flying, mostly adults with the extensive brown striping on the breast, but the one toward the left side with the nearly all-white underparts is a juvenile. |
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![]() An adult with molt to non-breeding plumage mostly completed. |
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![]() An adult midway in molt to non-breeding plumage. Least Sandpipers are known for their usual posture, hunched-over and mouselike. This one is standing upright, a posture more associated with the Long-toed Stint, a Eurasian cousin to the Least that would be a great rarity in Northern California. But the plumage and leg color indicate that this is an ordinary Least. |
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