Common Sandpiper - 1894

Tringoides hypoleucus

A summer visitor.

This pretty species, which sometimes goes by the name of the "Summer Snipe,'' arrives about the middle of April from the south, by which date we always noticed a pair or two by the western Cleddy beneath Stone Hall. They remained for a week or ten days, and then quitted us for their nesting places higher up the stream. When fishing the brooks that run down from the Precelly Mountains near Maenchlogog, in June and July, we always found these Sandpipers abundant, and very noisy and excited when we were near their nests or young.

In company with Ring Ouzels, Dippers, Common Snipe, Wheatears, Grey Wagtails, and Whinchats, we were glad to welcome them, and regarded their lively presence as they flew before us up the stream with their peculiar jerking flight with pleasure, as they added the charm of beauty and interest to our ramble.

Early in August the Sandpipers leave their nesting stations and descend with their young to the mouths of the streams, by whose banks they have spent the summer, and pass a couple of months on the salt marshes and in the muddy creeks adjoining the shore before they migrate southwards for their winter quarters.

Mathew M.A. 1894, Birds of Pembrokeshire and it's Islands