Purple Sandpiper (Calidris maritima)

Purple sandpipers are the northernmost wintering shore birds. Their winter range in the Americas consists of the coast of Quebec and Newfoundland, coastal New England, as far south as South Carolina, and rarely, as far south as Florida. Some are seen along eastern coasts of the Great Lakes. Outside the Americas, their range consists of Greenland, Iceland, Norway, and from northern Norway to southern Belgium. They can also be found in Palearctic locations, including the Faeroe Islands, Britain, Ireland, Norway, Murmansk Russia, theBaltic coasts, Denmark, western and northern Germany, the Netherlands, and Belgium.

Purple sandpipers are migratory birds that migrate to warmer climates in order to breed. In the Americas, their breeding range consists of islands in high Canadian arctic, south to the eastern shore of Hudson Bay. They may also breed west to Banks Island, Melville, Bathurst, Devon, Bylot, Baffin Island, Southampton and Belcher Islands, North Twin Island, James Bay, Banks and Prince Patrick Islands and southern Ellesmere Island. Outside the Americas, their breeding range consists of Greenland, Iceland, northern Europe, coastal northern Russia, northwestern and central Siberia.

Biogeographic Regions: nearctic (Native ); palearctic (Native )

Other Geographic Terms: holarctic