Mega-Rarity Purple Sandpiper at Inglewood Bird Sanctuary

On Thursday, May 9th, local birder and photographer Eddy Matuod found and photographed an unusual sandpiper at Inglewood Bird Sanctuary here in Calgary.  Uncertain if it was a Rock or Purple Sandpiper, or possibly a weird looking Least Sandpiper, he posted his find to Albertabird.  After some discussion online, opinion seemed to crystallize around this being a Purple Sandpiper, Calidris maritima.  The bird was present on Friday morning and observed by many birders, who all seemed to agree on the Purple identification.  If accepted, this would be a first Alberta record for this species.

After work on Friday, I popped over to Inglewood to have a look for myself and snapped these photos as well as some video.  The video is not great (tricky to shoot video handholding at 400mm!) but may be useful for identification.  The starlings in the second half of the clip were behaving very aggressively towards the little peep, as was a magpie.  This may have contributed to the birds apparent departure, as of Saturday morning.

For best results with this video, go to full screen and select 1080p HD for the quality...