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The UK Bird Atlas

Pectoral Sandpiper (Calidris melanotos)Where and when to see it in the UK

Status not yet classified · reporting peaks September · Sandpipers and Allies · BOU category A

Records to 2026-08-16 · build 2026-08-31

Pectoral Sandpiper (Calidris melanotos)
Andreas Trepte, CC BY-SA 2.5, via Wikimedia Commons
Peak months
Pectoral Sandpiper: relative reporting rate by 10 km square, September

Contains OS data © Crown copyright and database right 2026 (grid squares, place names from OS Open Names). Northern Ireland place names: OSNI Open Data, OGL v3.0. County and country boundaries: Office for National Statistics, Open Government Licence v3.0. Coastline: Natural Earth. Bird records from the data partners listed here.

Pectoral Sandpiper has been recorded in 290 of the 2,971 10 km squares covering UK land (10%) in records to 2026. Its strongest squares are in England, Scotland and Wales. Reporting peaks in September.

Conservation status: Least Concern (IUCN Red List, LC)
View on the IUCN Red List
Relative to this species' best squares (how classes are calculated)
Very high
10% or more of visits
High
2% to 10%
Moderate
<1% to 2%
Low
under <1%
Surveyed, not recorded
at least 20 qualifying visits, no record
Insufficient records
too few visits to say
Lighter fill
Few visits, lower confidence
Small dot
Occasional: a single record, or out of season

Seasonality

Reporting rate by month, relative to the peak month
MonthRelative to peakShare of visitsTypical class
January 0%<1%Low
February 0%<1%Insufficient records
March 0%<1%Low
April 1%<1%Very high
May 8%<1%Low
June 2%<1%Low
July 29%<1%High
August 37%<1%Low
September 100%<1%High
October 31%<1%Very high
November 2%<1%Moderate
December 0%<1%Very high

Squares with the highest reporting rate in September

SquareWhereShare of visitsClass
HU41Shetland Islands, Scotland100%Very high
J37Belfast, Northern Ireland100%Very high
NK06Aberdeenshire, Scotland100%Very high
NM35Argyll and Bute, Scotland100%Very high
NO30Fife, Scotland100%Very high
NT04South Lanarkshire, Scotland100%Very high
NU14Northumberland, England100%Very high
NU22Northumberland, England100%Very high
NU23Northumberland, England100%Very high
NZ11County Durham, England100%Very high

Spotted an error in a square? Report it and it goes into the review queue. Read the methodology for how classes, flags and sensitive-species rules work. Data to 2026.