Birds

Juvenile Least Sandpipers Calidris minutilla

August 20, 2010 by Corey 4 Comments

Juvenile Least Sandpipers are among the most beautiful of shorebirds.  Their gorgeous white-fringed feathers and propensity for allowing close approach combine to make them a treat every single summer during shorebird season.  Sure, young Short-billed Dowitchers are also attractive creatures, American Avocets and Wilson’s Phalaropes are just plain neat to see, and everyone likes to see a rare Siberian shorebird, but this birder in the northeastern United States invariably considers it a good shorebird outing even if all of the above are lacking but a cooperative young Calidris minutilla wanders close by.

What a great little bird!  Here’s hoping that there are lots of them this year so there will be lots next year and so on and so forth ad infinitum.

Written by Corey
Corey is a New Yorker who lived most of his life in upstate New York but has lived in Queens since 2008. He's only been birding since 2005 but has garnered a respectable life list by birding whenever he wasn't working as a union representative or spending time with his family. He lives in Forest Hills with Daisy and Desmond Shearwater. His bird photographs have appeared on the Today Show, in Birding, Living Bird Magazine, Bird Watcher's Digest, and many other fine publications. He is also the author of the American Birding Association Field Guide to the Birds of New York.