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Wandering Tattlers are small waders. Their plumage is cryptic. When seen in Australia, they are in eclipse plumage. During the non-breeding season they have a light-grey throat patch, grey chest and shoulders and light-grey belly, vent and undertail coverts. The head, except for light-grey eyebrows and thin light-grey eye-rings, is all-grey. The lores and the cap are the darkest shade of grey, together with the back, including the wings. In-flight they do not show a wing bar. During the breeding season, the sides of the head and the entire front are brownish-grey, with light-grey scalloping or barring throughout. The eyes have dark irises. The dark-grey bill is straight and longer than the size of the head, with an olive-grey base of the lower mandible. The legs and feet are yellow-olive. The legs are relatively short and in flight do not protrude beyond the tail. Juveniles roughly resemble non-breeding adults, but are dark-grey, with some light-grey barring.

Twitcher's tip

Compared with Grey-tailed Tattlers, they have more colour contrast between front and back and a darker-grey appearance overall. Compared to other species of small sandpipers and stints, both species of tattlers have distinctive yellow legs.

The correct identification of waders ("shorebirds"), e.g. of the Calidris, Tringa, Actitis and related families or of the Charadrius, Pluvialis and related genera in the field can be quite tricky. We have therefore made an attempt to give some advice HERE.

The overall distribution of this species can be assessed, and specific locations where birds have been spotted can be found, based on individual sighting reports submitted by birdwatchers to ebird.org .

The global distribution of the Wandering Tattler is available HERE .

Wandering Tattlers are a strongly migratory species. Their breeding grounds are located on both sides of the northern Pacific, in far-eastern Russia, the Aleutian islands, Alaska, north-western Canada and down the North American West coast. They spend the northern winters farther South, either down the American West coast, as far as Peru, Galapagos and Hanga Roa, on any of the Pacific islands (including Papeete and Hawaii), or down the East Asian coastline, via Japan, Taiwan and the Philippines into eastern Indonesia, New Guinea, Oceania, to Australia and northern New Zealand.

Wandering Tattlers are uncommon migrants to Australia from the North. They are occasionally seen along the North-East coast of the continent, from the tip of Cape York peninsula, all along the QLD coastline, down to the NSW far North coast.

Wandering Tattlers have a strong preference for rocky habitats, such as open reefs and coastal rockfaces.

M. Mearns reports spotting a Wandering Tattler on Lady Elliot Island, off the QLD coast near Agnes Water, in January 2006 and again in January 2016.

H. Mouritsen reports spotting a Wandering Tattler on One Tree Island, Capricornia Cays NP, near Rockhampton, QLD, in January 2011.

Two Wandering Tattlers in non-breeding were spotted by C. Hayne at Flat Rock Beach, Skennars Head, 10 km North-East of Ballina, NSW, in early January 2013.

M. Eaton reports finding Wandering Tattlers at Caloundra Headland, QLD, in January 2018. Another was found at Flat Rock, Ballina, NSW, in January 2023.