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The Black-fronted Dotterel is a small distinctive shorebird that is usually found near fresh water and is often heard before it is seen. It is present both in Broome itself and also surrounding ephemeral lakes and appears to breed throughout the year if the conditions are right. We often come across their nests by accident [...]

Spotted Sandpipers are cool little birds, easily identified by a host of field marks and behaviors. Their stiff-winged flight is a great way to identify them at a distance, as is their tendency to bob their tail end up and down as they make their way along the edges of ponds, lakes, or virtually any [...]

Well, what is odd about this picture? It was taken in Paramus, New Jersey, at Van Saun Park earlier today. Spotted Sandpiper Actitus macularia Figured it out? No? Scroll on down to learn the answer. … … … … … … … … … Keep On Scrolling! … … … … … … … Here [...]

Are you or do you know someone who is currently anywhere between the north of Australia and the Bohai Sea in China? Have you seen any Red Knot? Even if you are somewhere on the coast in China…have you seen any Red Knot? We know they are some of the last shorebirds to leave Roebuck [...]

Queens, New York, May 2010 At one time there was an airport in northern Queens called Flushing Airport.  It was shut down in 1984 due to frequent flooding, a fatal plane crash in 1977, and the growth of LaGuardia Airport.  The land has since started to return to something approaching a wild state.  Unfortunately, developers [...]

American Oystercatchers, with their orange, carrot-like bills and piercing cries, are a familiar sight on the east coast of the United States. It is the rare beach-goer who fails to take notice of the birds if they are present and it is even more rare for someone to notice them and fail to think that [...]

There cannot be many ABA area breeding birds harder to get than those that only breed on the remotest tips of the north of North America and then fly off to places that aren’t on the major continental flyways. One such tricky bird is the Bristle-thighed Curlew, a species that complicates the matter by looking suspiciously like [...]

If you see shorebirds on a coastal beach in North America they are most likely Sanderlings (Calidris alba).  If they are running back and forth as the waves ebb and flow they are almost assuredly Sanderlings.  They are the “clockwork toy” birds according to Sibley, “The Bird That Plays Tag with the Waves” according to [...]

Upland Sandpipers are one of the coolest and most awkward-looking of our continent’s birds. See, it’s not so scary! Photographed at Medicine Lake National Wildlife Refuge, MT. Birders are a timid bunch. They are scared of all sorts of things. The thought of identifying certain groups of birds can incapacitate them. They are fearful of [...]

The Long-billed Curlew’s (Numenius americanus) bill is best adapted for capturing shrimp and crabs living in deep burrows on tidal mudflats or burrowing earthworms in pastures (click on photos for full sized images). They are entirely carnivorous, feeding on terrestrial insects, marine crustaceans and invertebrates as well as some small vertebrates. As you can see, [...]

The waterfront of Brooklyn on either side of the Verrazano Bridge is the best place in New York City to see Purple Sandpipers. Every year they winter there on the rocky breakwater mere feet from the path between lower New York Harbor and the Belt Parkway that innumerable joggers, walkers, and bikers use. Of course, [...]

By the end of February, the American Woodcocks at Mason Farm near Chapel Hill have been calling on territory for the better part of two months.  It’s one of the many advantages to life south of the Mason-Dixon line, and I don’t know whether it’s the mild winters or the wintering birds forcing our residents [...]

The city of Cairns is a gateway for a lot of the top end of Queensland, both for those seeking the delights to be found in the Great barrier Reef and those looking to explore the patchwork of forest and savana that is tropical Australia. But for those seeking wildlife there is plenty to see [...]

Become a birder and you’re suddenly a litterateur, too.  It’s not much of a selling point, I suppose, but how else to explain the fact that birders, simply by association with the width and breadth of avifauna across the wide world, are also students of the english language.  We learn by osmosis such SAT study [...]

We New Yorkers get excited about single American Avocets showing up in our state and when more than one avocet is around we can’t help but go take a look. Theoretically, we understand that sometimes Recurvirostra americana shows up in larger groups than that but we have a hard time visualizing such an occurrence. Having [...]

We have had a wet week in Broome with a tropical low to our north and further down the coast there is a cyclone. This cyclone has been named Cyclone Iggy and is a dominant circle on our satellite image of Western Australia. It has been amusing to listen to the “younger” weather people on [...]

The air was thick and clammy, and mosquitoes were biting along Louisiana’s Mermentau River last Thursday morning, the final day of the Audubon Christmas Bird Count. A lone Black-bellied Plover quietly worked the flats amid hundreds of other shorebirds. Black-bellied (Grey) Plover, Pluvialis squatarola, in California CC-BY Alan Vernon Remarkable birds, Black-bellied Plovers, winter refugees [...]

It had to happen eventually! We have all been waiting for the rain to arrive and it seems to be later this Wet Season. The frogs must have been wondering what was going on, but now they are happy. It’s not “rain” here until we get over 10mm in a downpour, which has now officially happened [...]

Greater Yellowlegs (Tringa melanoleuca) photos by Larry Jordan Shorebirds. Why are they seemingly so difficult to identify? One obvious reason is that most have plumage variations between their breeding plumage and non-breeding plumage. Plus many sandpipers plumages are very similar. Take the Greater Yellowlegs (Tringa melanoleuca) for example (click on photos for full sized images). You would [...]

We have spent most of our time recently with the shorebirds of Roebuck Bay. They have returned from the north, though more are returning and there is very little knowledge on their arrival back in the Bay. When they depart on their northward migration it is possible to go into Roebuck Bay in the late [...]