Diet and Foraging

The Sharp-tailed Sandpiper (Calidris acuminata) is omnivorous, consuming a wide variety of foods, including insects and their larvae, bivalves, snails, crustaceans, polychaete worms and seeds (43 Higgins, P. J., and S. J. J. F. Davies, Editors (1996). Handbook of Australian, New Zealand and Antarctic Birds. Volume 3. Pratincoles to Pigeons. Oxford University Press, Melbourne, Australia. Close ). It feeds at the water’s edge using combined pecking and jabbing with rapid, shallow probing. In Australia, the Sharp-tailed Sandpiper is often found in large flocks of 100s to 1000s that are typically fragmented into scattered small groups for feeding.

Food Capture and Consumption

In Australia, at Lake Reeve, Victoria, Sharp-tailed Sandpiper fed on algal mats and mudflats, mainly pecking (49%) and jabbing (33%), feeding at a rate of 0.36 movements per second (66 Dann, P. (1983). Feeding behaviour of four species of Calidridine sandpiper at Lake Reeve in east Gippsland. Victoria Wader Study Group Bulletin 7:2–6. Close ). At Westernport Bay, Victoria, probes during feeding went 0 to 1.3 cm below the surface (81 Dann, P. (1981). Resource allocation among three congeneric species of sandpiper. The Stilt 1:3 Close ). Sharp-tailed Sandpiper have also been noted taking flying insects, gleaning insects, and scavenging small floating dead fish (43 Higgins, P. J., and S. J. J. F. Davies, Editors (1996). Handbook of Australian, New Zealand and Antarctic Birds. Volume 3. Pratincoles to Pigeons. Oxford University Press, Melbourne, Australia. Close ).

Major Food Items

In Australia, Sharp-tailed Sandpiper stomach contents varied from largely plant material to almost entirely that of animals, though at most sites animal foods predominated (43 Higgins, P. J., and S. J. J. F. Davies, Editors (1996). Handbook of Australian, New Zealand and Antarctic Birds. Volume 3. Pratincoles to Pigeons. Oxford University Press, Melbourne, Australia. Close ). Plants consumed included crowngrass (Paspalum spp), alfalfa (Medicago sativa), Ruppia spp., goosefoots (chenopodium spp.), clover (Trifolium spp.), and Polygonum spp. (43 Higgins, P. J., and S. J. J. F. Davies, Editors (1996). Handbook of Australian, New Zealand and Antarctic Birds. Volume 3. Pratincoles to Pigeons. Oxford University Press, Melbourne, Australia. Close ). Animal foods included gastropods (Coxiella striatula), polychaete worms (Ceratonereis eurythraeensis), pearly freshwater mussels (Hydriidae), amphipods (Parhyalella), seed shrimp (Australocypris hypersalina), dragonflies and damselflies (Odonata), Acrididae grasshopppers, earwigs (Dermaptera), true bugs (Hemiptera), ground beetles (Carabidae), water beetles and their larvae, leaf beetles (Chrysomelidae), snout weevils (Curculionidae), flies (Diptera) and their larvae, and the larvae of Lepidoptera, butterflies and moths (43 Higgins, P. J., and S. J. J. F. Davies, Editors (1996). Handbook of Australian, New Zealand and Antarctic Birds. Volume 3. Pratincoles to Pigeons. Oxford University Press, Melbourne, Australia. Close ).

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Sharp-tailed Sandpiper juveniles migrate nearly straight east to stage in coastal western Alaska before heading south to their wintering grounds in Australia and New Zealand, a detour of 1,500 to 3,400 km compared to the more direct route taken by adults (62 Handel, C. M., and R. E. Gill, Jr. (2010). Wayward Youth: Trans-Beringian Movement and Differential Southward Migration by Juvenile Sharp-tailed Sandpipers. Arctic 63:273-288. Close ). The reason for this detour is due, in part, to the excellent feeding conditions in coastal western Alaska (3 Lindström, Å., Gill, R.E., Jamieson, S.E., McCaffery, B., Wennerberg, L., Wikelski, M. and Klaassen, M. (2011). A puzzling migratory detour: are fueling conditions in Alaska driving the movement of juvenile Sharp-tailed Sandpipers? Condor. 113(1): 129–139. Close ). Juveniles arrive in western Alaska with very low fuel loads: average body mass of 70.8 g for males and 57.6 g for females, only about 3–6% above lean body mass (3 Lindström, Å., Gill, R.E., Jamieson, S.E., McCaffery, B., Wennerberg, L., Wikelski, M. and Klaassen, M. (2011). A puzzling migratory detour: are fueling conditions in Alaska driving the movement of juvenile Sharp-tailed Sandpipers? Condor. 113(1): 129–139. Close ). During early September, the mass of juvenile Sharp-tailed Sandpipers was found to increase at the modest rate of 0.5% of lean body mass per day, but later in September, this increased to approximately 6% of lean body mass per day, a rate that equals the top rate found in any similarly sized shorebird (3 Lindström, Å., Gill, R.E., Jamieson, S.E., McCaffery, B., Wennerberg, L., Wikelski, M. and Klaassen, M. (2011). A puzzling migratory detour: are fueling conditions in Alaska driving the movement of juvenile Sharp-tailed Sandpipers? Condor. 113(1): 129–139. Close ). Some individuals more than doubled their body mass secondary to fuel deposition while on their Alaska staging areas, allowing for a non-stop transoceanic flight of 7,100 to 9,800 km to their Southern Hemisphere wintering grounds (3 Lindström, Å., Gill, R.E., Jamieson, S.E., McCaffery, B., Wennerberg, L., Wikelski, M. and Klaassen, M. (2011). A puzzling migratory detour: are fueling conditions in Alaska driving the movement of juvenile Sharp-tailed Sandpipers? Condor. 113(1): 129–139. Close ).

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