In the first part of this pair of posts introducing our local shorebirds, I covered the three smaller families of shorebirds in Northeast Marin, together comprising seven species among the stilts and avocets, plovers, and oystercatchers. Today, I follow up with the extensive and varied array of birds belonging to our most diverse shorebird family, the sandpipers. Although I make this division in order to make a division somewhere, many casual birders probably don’t think of all the below birds as close relatives the way the the four plovers, for example, are easily clustered together. In fact, you should probably be careful applying the word “sandpiper,” since many people use that word to refer to the handful of species that employ the term within their common name (i.e. “least sandpiper” and “western sandpiper”), while the majority of these birds have their own names, many of them very nice ones too. If you need to talk about them collectively, you could use the scientific family name, Scolopacidae. That will make you sound very knowledgeable.
To give some order and a bit of a mental roadmap for learning these 16 different species, I’m listing them here roughly in order of increasing size, but with a few similar or related birds clustered together for convenient comparisons. They range from the tiniest shorebird in North America, the aptly named least sandpiper, to one of the largest in the long-billed curlew. Given their huge diversity, the main things that can be pointed to as widely shared characteristics include the short, elevated hind toe found on almost all members of the family, indicating their common ancestry, and the fact that their bills, while highly varied in size and shape, are typically more slender than the relatively stubby bills of the plovers profiled earlier. If you’d like a concise, printable listing of all these local shorebirds to use in conjunction with your favorite field guide, you can download the pdf right here.
- Least Sandpiper: Often referred to along with the Western Sandpiper as one of the “peeps”—a group of small sandpipers that often difficult to specifically identify at a distance. If you get close, the simplified ID rule is that leasts are relatively brownish, darker, and have yellowish legs, while westerns are somewhat lighter and grayer and have dark legs. But if you’re not close, then feel free to just call them “peeps” and enjoy their massive undulating flocks over the mudflats at Hamilton and in smaller flocks in other wetlands.
- Western Sandpiper: Slightly larger and grayer in winter plumage than the browner leasts, this other peep shares habits of hyperactive group feeding and impressive undulating flocks in flight. You may well see mixed flocks of both of these species, sometimes in the dozens, sometimes in the hundreds or even thousands. One interesting thing to note about these very small shorebirds is that a good chunk of their food is not discrete invertebrate animals, as is the case with most of the larger shorebirds, but is rather contributed by biofilm, the tiny film of photosynthetic plant material on the surface of our mudflats, leading naturalist David Lukas (in Bay Area Birds) to refer to their ecological role as that of “grazing herbivores, as if they were small feathered cows grazing on the mudflats.”
Dunlin – Kev Chapman Dunlin: Like a slightly larger version of Western Sandpipers, with somewhat longer and more drooping bills. Dunlins are sometimes grouped with the peeps, or sometimes described as a “larger peep” that is often easier to distinguish than the two small species, with which it can frequently intermingle. In the earlier part of fall migration, you don’t have to worry about them though, since they are late migrants who don’t arrive until mid-September (smaller peeps show up in July), waiting in Alaska until they lose their breeding plumage. Like the other peeps, they can gather in huge, undulating flocks that are among the most mesmerizing sights to be found in all of our local nature.
They usually don’t look like this here – Kelly Colgan Azar Spotted Sandpiper: Although this bird is also termed a “sandpiper” in its common name, it is quite distinct from the first two small species above. “Spotties” are distinctly larger, are more or less solitary and non-flocking (a few birds may loosely associate), and have an unmistakable habit of teetering and bobbing their rump up and down. They use both rocky shorelines (Loch Lomond and other parts of the San Rafael Bay Trail) and gravelly pond edges (Stafford Lake). The other thing that can throw a novice is why they’re called a spotted sandpiper, since we rarely see them in their spotty breeding plumage here. Keep a lookout on the edges of the seasons however, in May or July, when you may see them in their full spotty glory. Observe some teetering in a plumage more typical of our wintering birds:
- Black Turnstone: Another specialist of rocky shorelines, like the oystercatcher and to some degree the spotted sandpiper, best found here at Loch Lomond Marina on Point San Pedro Road in San Rafael. The name of the chunky birds is apt: they are indeed quite black outside of their white bellies and they do indeed turn over stones as they search for prey.
Black Turnstone – Andy Reago & Chrissy McClarren 
Female Wilson’s Phalarope in breeding plumage – Matt Stratmoen Wilson’s Phalarope: Phalaropes only pass through on migration (June-September), but are unique and attention grabbing in a few different ways. Looming large among their biological claims to fame is their rare reversal of standard sex roles, with females leaving incubation and the early care of the young to the males, while they split after laying the eggs, heading off in search of additional mates in a system known as serial polyandry. Early in migration, in say July, it is therefore the females in particular who may bear evidence of their colorful breeding plumage. Males have a less dramatic summer costume, but both sexes of the Wilson’s species soon revert to a very plain non-breeding garb.
Red-neck in winter plumage – Doug Greenberg Red-necked Phalarope: Then we have a second phalarope species, which averages little later than the Wilson’s, mostly appearing from late July into October. In their winter plumage, they are distinguished from Wilson’s by the black eyepatch and their generally smaller size. Unlike most shorebirds, phalaropes are comfortable swimmers of an extreme buoyancy: after passing by our latitudes, red-necks spend most of the non-breeding season in the open ocean off the coast of South America. This point about their swimming talents leads me to the other very fun thing about phalaropes, their unique feeding style of swimming in tight little circles to create a mini vortex that draws up food items from the substrate lying beneath shallow water. Who doesn’t like watching buoyant little pintpots spinning like tops?
Snipe – Becky Matsubara Wilson’s Snipe: These solitary skulkers are never abundant and are easily overlooked, often hiding among plants on the edges of ponds or in flooded fields. They are hard to spot – that’s where the word “sniper” comes from. Snipe generally won’t be found out in the middle of an exposed mudflat, so you’ll tend to have better luck looking for them around more vegetated ponds such as Las Gallinas, Shollenberger in Petaluma, and various minor ponds here and there. If you see one, however, snipe are pretty easy to identify by their extremely long, straight bill and distinct horizontal lines running across the head and continuing across the back.
- Short-billed Dowitcher: We have two very similar dowitcher species (long-billed and short-billed), which are often impossible to distinguish visually. Their calls are more distinctive, but sometimes you don’t hear them either. Dowitchers are fairly common in wetlands in winter, where flocks probe with their long bills submerged in the mud in a repeated “sewing machine” machine.
Dowitchers – Allan Hack (breeding plumage bird on right) - Long-billed Dowitcher: Again, just note that the two dowitcher species essentially look the same (to normal people) – bill length is not a practical field mark for distinguishing them. Generally, I would recommend relaxing about the specific identification and just enjoy watching them work their sewing machines:
- Greater Yellowlegs: This is one of our most common and widespread shorebirds, appearing individually or in small, loose groups wading in a wide variety of ponds and wetlands. Their yellow legs generally make them easy to distinguish from the slightly larger willet and their foraging strategy of walking and picking at visually-targeted prey distinguishes them from the mass of bills-down probing dowitchers.
Greater & Lesser Yellowlegs – John Sutton - Lesser Yellowlegs: The great majority of our local yellowlegs are greaters, but we do have a second species, the much less common lesser yellowlegs. They are clearly smaller when seen side by side (which can certainly happen), they have a shorter bill (perhaps around the length of the head, while greaters is distinctly longer), relatively clean and unbarred flanks (greaters have a lot of flank barring in breeding plumage), and a more muted, two-note call (versus the strident, ringing, 3-5 note call of the greaters). They are perhaps most commonly seen during migration, with July and August perhaps the best months for spotting a few among the always more numerous greaters.
- Willet: Similar shape to yellowlegs, but bigger, bulkier, and gray all over. Often gives loud alarm call and shows striking black and white wings in flight. In winter, they are often found as scattered individuals wading in moderately deep water, like yellowlegs, but can also be found in large groups, especially in migration.
- Marbled Godwit: Our final three birds are distinctly larger and unlikely to be confused with any of the preceding species. The first of these is the marbled godwit, the only one of the three with a straight (or actually slightly upturned) bill, which is light at the base and dark at the tip. Overall, they are a marbled brownish, with reddish underwings revealed when they fly.
Marbled Godwit – Allan Hack - Whimbrel: The second and third of the “big shorebirds” both have markedly downcurved bills. The whimbrel is the smaller of these two, about the same size as the godwit. Compared to our next bird, whimbrels are smaller than curlews and have a shorter bill. Of the three, the whimbrel is the least common right here in northeast Marin; while the other two are regular residents of our wetlands and mudflats throughout the winter, whimbrels are more occasional, with numbers probably peaking during migration.
Around the world, on the other hand, whimbrels are widespread and present in North America (migrating into South America), Europe (migrating to Africa), and Asia (migrating between Siberia and Southeast Asia/Australia). The word whimbrel itself is a good example of the nice old traditional English names that we therefore get for many of our shorebirds, since the same or similar birds of these cosmopolitan families are found in Europe as well as in California. Shorebirds names are a pleasure for word-lovers: see for example James Joyce describing the ancient plains where wone to wail whimbrel o’er the saltings. We too can sometimes hear them wailing over our salty flats where the bay meets the land.
- Long-billed Curlew: Fairly common on mudflats, as well as wading in wet fields and adjacent vegetated areas. Although walking through a field might seem like unusual shorebird behavior to us, such habitats are in fact similar to their breeding habitat in the plains of western North America. Identification is pretty easy: curlews are our biggest shorebird and the one with the longest, downcurviest bill. The only possible source of confusion are the less common whimbrels, which are smaller, shorter-billed, less stripey on the head, and with less cinnamon tones (especially notable on the underwings of curlews). Curlews may forage alone or in loose groups.
Header image: An amazing congregation of willets and godwits by Ingrid Taylar on Flickr. Check out the full image!
Fabulous – & enjoyed the video clips (especially Dunlin murmuration); thanks again, Jack!