Globe āŗ Birds āŗ Purple sandpiper
Purple sandpiper migration Calidris maritima
ā¶ Follow the purple sandpiper across the big globe
Press ā¶ to play the year. Line: a simplified typical route, joining the main cluster of GBIF records in each month (adjusted for observer effort).
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| Scientific name | Calidris maritima |
|---|---|
| Wingspan | 44 cm |
| Adult weight | 67.6 g (male), 76.3 g (female) |
| IUCN status | Least concern |
| Records mapped | 298,136 (GBIF) |
| GPS / geolocator tracks | none with an open licence yet |
Facts from Wikidata Q62359 (CC0).
When does the purple sandpiper arrive in the UK?
A winter visitor in the records: numbers build from mid September and stay high until about late April.
Bars: this speciesā share of all UK bird records in GBIF (CC0/CC BY), by month, scaled to the peak month. Based on 19,834 UK records. Weekly counts from the GBIF occurrence search API (country=GB). Dates are read from records, not from a survey, so treat them as a guide.
When do they arrive in and leave the UK? ā
Migration in the data
298,136 GBIF records (CC0 and CC BY 4.0 licences only) are mapped here, in 1.41Ā° grid cells, month by month.
In Europe and Africa, the centre of the records (adjusted for observer effort) is furthest north in June (about 75Ā°N) and furthest south in December (about 60Ā°N).
Month by month: centre of records in Europe and Africa
| Month | Centre (latitude) | South of the Equator |
|---|---|---|
| January | 62Ā°N | 0% |
| February | 64Ā°N | 0% |
| March | 66Ā°N | 0% |
| April | 65Ā°N | 0% |
| May | 71Ā°N | 0% |
| June | 75Ā°N | 0% |
| July | 75Ā°N | 0% |
| August | 74Ā°N | 0% |
| September | 72Ā°N | 0% |
| October | 66Ā°N | 0% |
| November | 62Ā°N | 0% |
| December | 60Ā°N | 0% |
Tracked birds
No openly licensed (CC0 / CC BY) tracking data package for this species was found in the Movebank Data Repository yet, so only records are shown.
About the purple sandpiper
The purple sandpiper is a small shorebird in the sandpiper family Scolopacidae. This is a hardy sandpiper that breeds in the arctic and subarctic regions of Eurasia and North America and winters further south on the Atlantic coast.
From the Wikipedia article āPurple sandpiperā (revision 1347425637), CC BY-SA 4.0.
Sources
GBIF occurrence records, licence CC0 1.0 or CC BY 4.0 only, observations only (no specimens), filtered with: taxonKey=2481743&license=CC0_1_0&license=CC_BY_4_0&occurrenceStatus=PRESENT&hasGeospatialIssue=false&basisOfRecord=HUMAN_OBSERVATION&basisOfRecord=MACHINE_OBSERVATION&basisOfRecord=OBSERVATION. Monthly queries: Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec. GBIF.org (23 October 2026) occurrence data accessed via the GBIF API; a GBIF download DOI is still to be added. Contributing datasets.