Sandpipers surviving a European winter

Common Sandpiper (Steve Culley)

Sightings of Sand Martin (left) and Common Sandpiper (right) across Europe - 12-18 February 2026

The sight of a Common Sandpiper, a small wader brown above and white below, is not uncommon alongside rivers and lakes in North Wales in summer. With its bobbing gait, they nest among lakeside rocks, although will use human-made substrates: I know several that laid eggs on the ballast beside railway tracks, the incubating adult getting off briefly when it feels the vibration of an oncoming train. In February, most Common Sandpipers are bobbing alongside rivers in Africa, south of the Sahara, but birders’ sightings collated weekly by the European Bird Census Council suggest that many hundreds, perhaps thousands, are across western European waterbodies.

Around 30-40 Common Sandpipers winter in Wales according to the latest Welsh Ornithological Society bird report, almost always on estuaries. This is a good chunk of a British wintering population of 100 individuals, estimated in a recent paper in the journal British Birds. A couple are on the Clwyd estuary and Menai Strait, with others at RSPB Conwy, Flint Castle and Cemaes in recent weeks.

The first arrivals of our summer visitors are only weeks away if the weather is favourable. Sand Martin sightings have increased with warmer weather in Iberia in recent days, and a Whitethroat was in South Wales at the weekend, perhaps having overwintered closer than the Sahel.​
Winter’s grip in northern Europe is evident in the continued presence of White-fronted Geese: 30 in the Clwyd valley near Bodfari and 25 alongside the Dee at Holt on Monday. From across the Atlantic, the Lesser Yellowlegs remains on the Clwyd estuary, up to three Surf Scoters off Colwyn Bay and smart male Bufflehead on Llyn Coron, drawing admirers from far afield judging by binocular-wearing customers in an Aberffraw café at the weekend. Six Slavonian Grebes were in Beddmanarch Bay and a Long-tailed Duck on the nearby Inland Sea, Yellow-browed Warbler and Firecrest at Morfa Madryn, and a Black Redstart on Kinmel Bay beach.

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