The Wood Sandpiper (Tringa glareola) is a slender, elegant wader found on the mires of northern and central Sweden, its dark back finely marked with pale droplet-shaped spots and its legs a distinctive yellow-green. Adults measure 19-23 cm with a wingspan of around 36-40 cm and weigh roughly 50-90 grams, a neat, long-legged sandpiper. The upperparts are dark brown and densely spangled with light, droplet-like spots, while the underside is white. A clear white stripe runs back from the bill above the eye, giving the bird a gentle, friendly expression. In flight, a white rump contrasts sharply against otherwise plain dark wings.
The most frequent call is a bright, ringing, slightly giggling "tiff-tiff-tiff", often given by birds flushing into flight, lighter and more pearly than the sharper call of its close relative the Green Sandpiper. During the breeding season a yodelling display song can also be heard. Wood Sandpipers breed scattered across open mires and bogs, mainly in the boreal forest zone of northern and central Sweden, where the Swedish population runs into the hundreds of thousands of pairs; they occasionally use old thrush nests in trees instead of a ground scrape. The female usually lays four eggs, incubated by both parents, and the precocial chicks leave the nest soon after hatching to feed themselves under parental watch. The species forages briskly along the water's edge in shallow pools and wet mire, picking up insects, their larvae, and other small invertebrates with quick jabs. It is a long-distance migrant, arriving in May and departing early, often by July or August, to winter in Africa; despite ongoing drainage pressure on its mire habitat, it is currently assessed as Least Concern in Sweden.
Read about this species in Swedish →