A sandpiper with rich cinnamon and chestnut markings in breeding plumage. After adults migrate south, juveniles travel via Alaska toward Australasia.
In breeding plumage, cinnamon covers the back and breast, the breast is boldly spotted, and a chestnut cap tops the head.
A 2026 study used 636,167 Australian banding records to examine nonbreeding site fidelity in 12 long-distance migratory shorebirds. The data covered more than 84,000 birds and included the Sharp-tailed Sandpiper. The analysis compared how often marked birds returned to monitored locations in Australia.
Estimated site fidelity for Sharp-tailed Sandpipers was 99.6% at Werribee/Avalon and 100% at both Westernport and Swan Bay. The dataset contained 14,435 individuals of this species, of which 809 were reobserved. These estimates describe monitored Australian sites for a bird that also uses inland wetlands.
An extinction-risk assessment has not been added yet.
The authors note that Sharp-tailed Sandpipers use inland wetlands, while birds that depend on these less-monitored sites are underrepresented in coastal records. Continuing banding and resighting across both coastal and inland wetlands would provide a broader picture of the species’ Australian nonbreeding sites.