Voice.—Except on its breeding grounds, we considered the Aleutian sandpiper a very quiet and silent bird. Its twittering flight song is a part of the nuptial ceremony, and it was only on its nesting grounds that we heard the loud, musical, flutelike, whistling notes so suggestive of the melodious calls of the upland plover. Doctor Nelson (1887) describes what may be the same notes, as follows:
While on the wing it uttered a rather low but clear and musical tweo-tweo-tweo. When feeding it had a note something like a call of the Colaptes auratus, and which may be represented by the syllables clu-clu-clu.
Mr. Clark (1910) also says:
The cry is loud and clear, bearing a striking resemblance to the call of the flicker.
Field marks.—In winter the Aleutian sandpiper might easily be mistaken for a purple sandpiper, which it closely resembles in appearance, haunts, and behavior, but the winter ranges of the two species are widely separated. From the Pribilof sandpiper it differs in being decidedly smaller, and in summer it is much darker, with less rufous above and more black below.
Fall.—The Aleutian sandpiper withdraws in the fall from the northern portions of its breeding range in Alaska and Siberia, and it may be that the birds which breed farthest north are the ones which migrate farthest south to spend the winter, for the species is resident throughout the year in the Aleutian Islands. In the Norton Sound region it evidently occurs only as a migrant from northern Alaska and Siberia. Doctor Nelson (1887) says:
Early in August, however, I was pleased to find it abundant in parties of from five to thirty or forty about outlying islets and along rugged portions of the shore. During each of the four succeeding seasons the same experience was repeated, and the last of July or first of August I was certain to find the numbers of them in the situations mentioned, where earlier in the season not one was to be found. They always remained until the middle of October, when the beaches became covered with ice and they were forced to seek a milder climate. The 1st of October, as the first snowstorms begin, these birds desert the more exposed islets and beaches for the inner bays and sandy beaches, where their habits are like those of other sandpipers in similar situations.
Winter.—This hardy sandpiper is well known to winter regularly and abundantly in the Aleutian and Commander Islands. According to notes received from D. E. Brown, it reaches the coast of Washington as early as October 1, where it spends the winter in Grays Harbor and Jefferson Counties and on the outer islands. Carl Lien's notes, from Destruction Island, give it as a "common winter resident. A flock of probably 50 spend the winter. Nearly always found in company with turnstones and surfbirds, and together with these birds confine themselves entirely to the reefs."
DISTRIBUTION
Range.—The northeastern corner of Siberia, west coast of Alaska and adjacent islands, including the Aleutians, south (rarely) to northwestern Oregon.