Baird's Sandpiper Calidris bairdii Scientific name definitions

Named by Elliott Coues in 1861 for his mentor Spencer Fullerton Baird, the second secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, this species was one of the last sandpipers described in North America. Baird's Sandpiper breeds over a broad expanse of high-arctic North America and in parts of Russia, wintering from the Andes of Ecuador to the lowlands of Tierra del Fuego. Its migration is long but rapid. After departing high-arctic breeding grounds and staging in southern Canada and the northern United States, most individuals travel 6,000 kilometers or more directly to northern South America, some going on as far as Tierra del Fuego and many completing the entire 15,000-kilometer journey in as few as 5 weeks.

One of the most remarkable characteristics of this species is that it makes one of the largest investments in egg production known in birds. In a stunning feat of energy conversion, the female lays a clutch that is up to 120% of her body mass in 4 days, shortly after arriving in the Arctic, with essentially no stored fat. The energetics of this accomplishment remain unstudied.

Studies of Baird's Sandpiper are limited in number; a few key works provide most of our knowledge of its natural history. Notable among these are studies of breeding biology on Bylot Island, Nunavut (Drury 1961c Drury, W. H., Jr. (1961). The breeding biology of shorebirds on Bylot Island, Northwest Territories, Canada. Auk 78:176–219. Close ), and southeastern Victoria Island, Nunavut (Parmelee et al. 1967 Parmelee, D. F., H. A. Stephens, and R. H. Schmidt (1967). The birds of Southeastern Victoria Island and adjacent small islands. National Museum of Canada Bulletin 222. Close ); nest-defense behavior at Sarcpa Lake, Nunavut (Reid and Montgomerie 1985 Reid, M. L. and R. D. Montgomerie. (1985). Seasonal patterns of nest defence by Baird's Sandpipers. Canadian Journal of Zoology 63:2207-2211. Close ); foraging ecology (Holmes and Pitelka 1968 Holmes, R. T. and F. A. Pitelka. (1968). Food overlap among coexisting sandpipers on northern Alaska tundra. Systematic Zoology 17:305-318. Close ) and incubation scheduling (Norton 1972 Norton, D. W. (1972). Incubation schedules of four species of calidridine sandpipers at Barrow, Alaska. Condor 74 (2):164-176. Close ) at Barrow, Alaska; vocalizations in northeastern Alaska (Miller et al. 1988a Miller, E. H., W. W. H. Gunn and B. N. Veprintsev. (1988a). Breeding vocalizations of Baird's Sandpiper Calidris bairdii and related species, with remarks on phylogeny and adaptation. Ornis Scandinavica 19:257-267. Close ); and fall migration, using museum specimens (Jehl 1979a Jehl, J. R. (1979a). The autumn migration of Baird's Sandpiper. Studies in Avian Biology 2:55-68. Close ). The unpublished data and observa-tions by RM in this species account were collected during 13 breeding seasons (June–July 1981–1993) of research at Sarcpa Lake (68°33'N, 83°19'W) and to a lesser extent at Igloolik, Nunavut (1984, 1985, 1989–1994), and Hall Beach, Nunavut, and Point Barrow (1993).