Actitis macularius
Silhouette: Andy Wilson · PhyloPic
In 3 days ~60% in a week ~80%
The spotted sandpiper (Actitis macularius) is a small shorebird. Together with its sister species the common sandpiper (A. hypoleucos), it makes up the genus Actitis. They replace each other geographically; stray birds may settle down with breeders of the other species and hybridize.
The spotted sandpiper was formally described by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in 1766 in the twelfth edition of his Systema Naturae under the binomial name Tringa macularia. The type locality is Pennsylvania. The species is now placed together with common sandpiper in the genus Actitis and was introduced in 1811 by the German zoologist Johann Illiger. The genus name Actitis is from the Ancient Greek aktites meaning "coast-dweller" from akte meaning "coast". The specific epithet macularius is Latin meaning "spotted". The species is monotypic: no subspecies are recognised.
Adults have short yellowish legs and an orange bill with a dark tip. The body is brown on top and white underneath with black spots. These spots vary in degree over the course of spotted sandpipers' lives, becoming especially prevalent around the breeding season. The overall health of spotted sandpipers... Wikipedia →
| # | City | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | León | 🇲🇽 México | |
| 2 | Panama City | 🇵🇦 Panama | |
| 3 | São Luís | 🇧🇷 Brazil | |
| 4 | Guayaquil | 🇪🇨 Ecuador | |
| 5 | Havana | 🇨🇺 Cuba | |
| 6 | Lima | 🇵🇪 Peru | |
| 7 | Sacramento | 🇺🇸 United States | |
| 8 | Monterrey | 🇲🇽 México | |
| 9 | Calgary | 🇨🇦 Canada | |
| 10 | Mexico City | 🇲🇽 México |
Possible
About 20% of wildlife watchers report a Spotted Sandpiper sighting in Katmai National Park on a given day, based on 42 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data from 2019 to 2026. It is the 23rd most-seen of the 93 birds we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to about 60%, and over a week to about 80%, if each day is a fresh chance.
June
In that month about 40% of wildlife watchers report a Spotted Sandpiper in Katmai National Park on a given day, against about 10% in March, May and September, the lowest months. That is one of Katmai National Park's driest months, with about 80 mm of rain against 230 mm in December. April and October–February have too few records to rate.
Between 8 and 11 am
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Spotted Sandpiper sightings with a recorded time, and about 9 in 10 of them come between 6 am and 6 pm: it is a daytime animal.
24th of 111
Of the 111 parks where we can rate Spotted Sandpiper sightings, Katmai National Park ranks 24th at about 20%. The best odds are in Utría National Natural Park (Colombia, about 60%), Caroni Swamp (Trinidad and Tobago, about 60%) and Bahía de Loreto National Park (Mexico, about 50%). All parks ranked.
Same family: Scolopacidae
The closest relatives of the Spotted Sandpiper that you can see in Katmai National Park (family Scolopacidae, Sandpipers and Allies) are Greater Yellowlegs (about 60%), Lesser Yellowlegs (about 20%) and Least Sandpiper (about 20%), with each one's daily chance of a sighting.
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Spotted Sandpiper is recorded against all the birds logged in Katmai National Park (42 verified sightings from 2019 to 2026), calibrated against known sighting rates. Figures are rounded to the nearest 10% because citizen-science data supports honest approximations, not decimals, and months with records from fewer than five people show "—". How it works.
