The Diet of Upland Sandpipers (Bartramia Longicauda) in Managed Farmland in Their Neotropical Non-Breeding Grounds

Abstract

The Upland Sandpiper (Bartramia longicauda) is a migratory shorebird that inhabits grasslands at the breeding and non-breeding grounds. The trophic ecology of the species is poorly known, but it is thought to be insectivorous. In this study, we describe the diet of the Upland Sandpiper and its temporal variation in grasslands of northern Uruguay. From 2008 to 2012, we collected 67 feces at nine different sites in the Departments of Salto and Paysandú. The diet consisted mainly of insects (present in 98% of the feces) belonging to three orders: Coleoptera (in 80% of feces), Orthoptera (79%), and Hymenoptera (48%). Consumption of Orthoptera and Hymenoptera varied among years. Plant remains and stones were also recorded in feces. Vegetation may have been consumed secondarily while stones could be used in food processing in the gizzard. Our study demonstrates that Upland Sandpipers are diet generalists and probably forage opportunistically, depending on resource availability and focusing on the most abundant prey items.

Population estimates of shorebirds on the Atlantic Coast of southern South America generated from large-scale, simultaneous, volunteer-led surveys

“…Furthermore, as with previous studies, the oceanic beaches from Lagoa do Peixe southward to the Uruguayan border were especially important for sandy beach specialists like Sanderlings (Resende and Leewenberg 1987, Vooren and Chiaradria 1990). In Uruguay, we corroborated previous studies, which had shown that Nearctic species were largely restricted to the country’s eastern coast where there are a number of sizeable coastal lagoons (e.g., lagunas Rocha and Merín; Alfaro and Clara 2007, Aldabe et al 2023). In Argentina, we found the highest shorebird concentrations in previously reported important shorebird areas, such as Bahía Samborombón (Mártinez-Curci et al 2017), Bahía Blanca (Blanco et al 2006), the Estuario de Río Gallegos (Ferrari et al 2002), and Tierra del Fuego (Morrison and Ross 1989, Baker et al 2005).…”

“…As a first step, we chose habitats and sites to survey by relying on previous information indicating their potential importance for migratory and resident shorebirds (Morrison and Ross 1989, Isacch and Martínez 2003, Bencke et al 2006, Alfaro and Clara 2007, WHSRN 2023), searching the eBird database (Sullivan et al 2014), and following the methodology developed by Senner and Angulo-Pratolongo (2014) and García-Walther et al (2017). The habitats included rocky and sandy beaches, restingas (broad rocky platforms extending to the lower intertidal zone; Morrison and Ross 1989), intertidal mudflats, shallow water wetlands, and adjacent low vegetation height grasslands.…”

Body Condition of the Upland Sandpiper (Bartramia Longicauda) en Route Through Central Mexico

“…The Upland Sandpiper starts fall migration from mid-July to late August (Vickery et al 2010), after a short 4-month breeding season and concludes with a long, 6-8-month wintering period (Houston et al 2011). Most information regarding its biology has been acquired from breeding and wintering grounds (Haverschmidt 1966, Vickery et al 2003, Blanco & López-Lanús 2008, Vickery et al 2010, Azpiroz et al 2012Alfaro et al 2015Alfaro et al , 2018, while little information exists from stop-over sites. Data from Mexico are practically nonexistent, with only a few specific mentions from the southern states of Oaxaca (Winker 1995, McAndrews & Montejo 2010, Alcántara-Salinas et al 2011) and Tabasco (Córdova-Avalos et al 2009, revealing a knowledge gap in the life cycle of this migratory species.…”