Learn about the variety of different sandpipers you're most likely to see the next time you hit the beach or visit a shoreline. Shorebirds can be difficult to learn how to ID, but a great place to start is sandpipers, because they are found all throughout the U.S. and Canada.
Scolopacidae is a large family of shorebirds, or waders, which mainly includes many species known as sandpipers, but also others such as woodcocks, curlews, and snipes. Most of these species eat small invertebrates picked out of the mud or soil.
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With rufous and gold markings on the head and wings, breeding adult Western Sandpipers are the most colorful of the tiny North American sandpipers known as “peeps.” This abundant shorebird gathers in flocks numbering in the hundreds of thousands in California and Alaska during spring migration.
There are at least twenty-two native and vagrant species of sandpipers that have been identified in North America. Almost all of these types of sandpipers migrate into the northern ranges of the continent where they nest and raise their young.
Sandpipers have moderately long bills and legs, long, narrow wings, and fairly short tails. Their colouring often consists of a complicated “dead-grass” pattern of browns, buffs, and blacks on the upperparts, with white or cream colouring below. They are frequently paler in autumn than in spring.
Sandpipers are birds whose very name evokes images of shorelines, gentle waves, and elegant creatures darting along the water’s edge. These seemingly simple birds possess fascinating complexity, a rich evolutionary history, and a vital role in the ecosystems they inhabit.