“The Common Sandpiper’s (Actitis hypoleucos) (above) classical call is made often when the bird is flushed and we would have heard this often. Wells (1999) describes this as ‘a shrill, pipping, pwee-wee-wee-wee‘. Van Gils, Wiersma & Kirwan (2017) in HBW describes a longer song which I am yet to hear.
“On this occasion I heard another type of call. This was a shrill, single, drawn-out note made at 1-2 second intervals, repeatedly. At the time the calls were made the bird did not appear to be in any distress. It had been feeding with other waders nearby – another Common Sandpiper, a few Wood Sandpipers (Tringa glareola), two Oriental Pratincoles (Glareola maldivarum), two Little Ringed Plover (Charadrius dubius) and a single Lesser Sandplover (Charadrius mongolus schaeferi). None were viewed as threats. I am not sure what to make of the call, but suspect it is some type of advertising or contact call.
“Video recording above.
The audio tract was extracted, amplified and had nose reduction applied before being combined with the video again (above). Sonogram and waveform below.
“Appreciate opinions.”
Dato’ Dr Amar-Singh HSS
Ipoh, Perak, Malaysia
4th September 2017
Location: Malim Nawar, Perak, Malaysia
Habitat: Ex-mining pools, fish farming, wetlands
One Response
Greetings!
This call is the typical alarm call of an adult CS when non-fledged juveniles are around and a potential predator (mammalian as well as avian) enters the vincinity.
It can also be heard later after the breeding season from (migrating) birds on a foraging stop, most likely when other CS are present, often without any obvious trigger (as in your case), so I guess it is a form of contact call in these cases; interestingly not so much in spring migration.
Checkout my recording of a juvenile and an alarm-calling adult at
https://xeno-canto.org/828491
All the best from Austria
Harald