Solitary Sandpiper Habitat Model
go to: USFWS Gulf of Maine Watershed Habitat Analysis
go to: Species Table

Draft Date:
November 2002

Species:
Solitary sandpiper, Tringa solitaria

Use of Study Area Resources:
Migration. Solitary sandpipers breed in the boreal forests of Alaska and Canada, as far east as Quebec and Labrador (Moskoff 1995). They winter in the Caribbean, Central and South America.

Habitat Requirements:
Solitary sandpipers do not migrate in large flocks as do most sandpipers (Moskoff 1995). They migrate inland, along the coasts and offshore, flying mostly at night (Moskoff 1995). Stop-over sites are wet or muddy, often stagnant areas typically associated with lakes, ponds, swamps, sewage ponds and drainage ditches (Veit and Petersen 1993).  Hayman et al. (1986) and Moskoff (1995) regard them as "uniquely a shorebird of forested ponds, often at high elevations.... Rarely seen in coastal saltmarshes or other intertidal habitats." However, Johnsgard (1981) states they occasionally use the upper ends of estuaries. In fact, a Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife (MDIFW) shorebird database and the Manomet Bird Observatory's International Shorebird Survey (ISS) database for Maine, Massachusetts and New Hampshire documented a total of 48 tidal riverine and estuarine occurrence sites used by this species.

Solitary sandpipers feed on  insect (adults and larvae), small crustaceans, worms, molluscs,  small fishes and frogs (Moskoff 1995), frequently on mats of floating vegetation.

Model:
Sites with known solitary sandpiper occurrences were scored higher than areas having appropriate cover types but without observation data. We used abundance/occurrence information from the MDIFW shorebird coverage, the ISS database, and Pierson et al. (1996) for additional inland sites used by solitary sandpiper in Maine. This occurrence information was used to select the general localities (polygons or buffers around observation points) used by the species. Environmental data sets (bathymetry and wetland cover type) were used to identify areas within those localities likely to have been used. The ISS data specified the observation locations only to the nearest geographic minute, and Pierson's observations also were somewhat general. Therefore, all suitable cover types (see table, below) within the MDIFW polygons or within a 1 km radius of the point data were regarded as having the respective levels of use for that observation.   

NWI Designations (wetlands only)	Cover Types	Cover Suitability (0 - 1 scale)
	Upland deciduous forest	0.5*
	Upland coniferous forest	0.5*
	Upland mixed forest	0.5*
	Grassland
	Upland scrub/shrub
	Cultivated
	Developed
	Bare ground
PEM, L2EM	Lake/pond, emergent vegetation	0.5*
PFOcon	Palustrine forest, conifer	0.5*
PFOdec	Palustrine forest, deciduous	0.5*
PSSdec	Palustrine scrub shrub, deciduous
PSScon	Palustrine scrub shrub, conifer
PAB, L2AB	Lake/pond, aquatic vegetation	1.0
L1UB, PUB	Lake/pond, unconsolidated bottom	0.5*
L2US	Lake, unconsolidated shore	1.0
L2RS	Lake, rocky shore
R1UB	Riverine subtidal unconsolidated
Rper	Riverine perennial
E1AB	Estuarine subtidal vegetated
E1UB	Estuarine subtidal unconsolidated bottom
E2AB	Estuarine intertidal algae
E2EM	Estuarine intertidal emergent
E2RS, R1RS	Estuarine, tidal river rocky shore
E2SS	Estuarine intertidal shrub
E2US, R1US	Estuarine, riverine intertidal unconsolidated shore	0.5
M1AB	Marine subtidal vegetated
M1UB	Marine subtidal unconsolidated bottom
M2AB	Marine intertidal algae
M2RS	Marine intertidal rocky shore
M2US	Marine intertidal unconsolidated shore
NOTES	* where forest borders pond or marsh

Habitat Suitability Scoring: Sites with solitary sandpiper occurrences and having any of the suitable landcover types (see table) first were scored according to level of use. If a site had 5 or more birds observed at any time, the landcover scores were applicable as presented; otherwise, if any birds were present, the landcover values were half the nominal score.

Suitable cover types outside of the observation/occurrence polygons were scored 0.2 for inland features and 0.1 for unconsolidated coastal substrates.

Sources:

Hayman, P., J. Marchant and T. Prater. 1986. Shorebirds, an Identification Guide. Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston, MA. 412 p.

Johnsgard, P.A. 1981. The Plovers, Sandpipers and Snipes of the World. University of Nebraska Press. Lincoln. 493 pp.

Moskoff, W. 1995. Solitary sandpiper (Tringa solitaria). In A. Poole and F. Gill (eds.) The Birds of North America, No. 156. The Birds of North America, Inc. Philadelphia, PA.

Pierson, E.C., J E. Pierson and P.D. Vickery. 1996. A Birders Guide to Maine. Down East Books, Camden, ME.

Veit, R.R. and W.R. Petersen. 1993. Birds of Massachusetts. Massachusetts Audubon Society. 514 p.