Vorstman's guideThe birds of Canada, the United States and Greenland

All species › Waders, gulls and terns › Sandpipers and allies

Sandpipers and allies | Scolopacidae

Strandlopers en snippen | Correlimos y agachadizas

This is a family of touch-feeders: the bill tip is packed with pressure-sensitive sense organs that detect prey deep in wet mud without the bird seeing it, and in many species only the outermost part of the upper mandible can be raised, so that a worm is gripped underground while the rest of the bill stays shut. Because bill and leg length differ widely between species, dozens of birds feed side by side on the same flat without crowding one another: one picks from the surface, another probes up to its eyes in the mud. A few species swim in tight circles and take whatever the vortex they create brings up. The nest is a trodden-out cup holding four eggs with the points inward; the chicks walk and find their own food almost at once. Over the breeding grounds display takes place high in the air, with a persistent thin call or, in some species, with a humming sound produced by the tail feathers spread into the wind.

Compare sandpipers, snipes and allies: bill, legs, wing bar and rump

Native species 36 species

Species that occur here by nature: breeding birds, winter visitors and passage migrants. They are arranged by genus, in the sequence of the list.

Curlews | Numeniinae

4 species

Large, long-legged waders whose long bill curves evenly downwards — the clearest difference from the straight-billed godwits. That curve follows the bend of a lugworm burrow or a crab hole and reaches prey no shorter bill can touch; females carry a longer bill than males and so work a little deeper on the same flat. The plumage stays streaked brown and sand-coloured all year, without the striking summer dress many other waders put on, so in the field you go by outline, bill length and the pattern of back and rump in flight. On the breeding ground — bog, moor, damp grassland — the bird climbs in a slow gliding display flight and pours out a long bubbling call. Outside the breeding season they are birds of mudflats and saltmarsh.

Godwits | Limosinae

3 species

Tall, long-bodied waders with a very long, straight or slightly upturned bill and legs that trail well beyond the tail in flight. Where curlews work their curved bill into a winding burrow, these birds drill straight down and up to the eyes into soft mud, often wading belly-deep. The plumage sets them apart too: in summer neck and breast turn a warm chestnut, while in winter the birds are plain grey-brown, so the same species looks quite unlike itself in May and in November. In flight the wing and tail pattern and the trailing legs are the surest marks. They breed on wet meadows and tundra, the male circling the ground in a noisy, calling display flight, and gather in dense flocks on estuaries for the rest of the year.

Sandpipers and turnstones | Arenariinae

16 species

The small to medium waders of mudflat and tideline: compact, short-legged, and with bills that range across the group from short and straight to long and gently curved, so that birds feeding side by side work different layers of the same flat. Most food is taken on foot, with fast sewing-machine jabs into wet ground; the turnstone uses its short wedge of a bill to lever weed, shells and pebbles aside and see what is underneath. They are far more sociable than the snipes: dense flocks wheel as one body and flash alternately pale and dark as they turn. In winter the plumage is a quiet grey, in summer often rufous or boldly marked with black, and most of them nest far north on open tundra.

Calidris 14 species

Snipes and woodcocks | Scolopacinae

4 species

Short-legged, thickset waders with a long straight bill and a plumage of brown, black and ochre that copies the pattern of dead leaves and old reed stems. The eyes sit high and far back in the head, so the bird can watch all round it while the bill is buried in soft ground. Unlike the shore sandpipers they live alone and hidden, in marsh, wet woodland floor and bog; they crouch flat and flush only when you are about to tread on them, then vanish in a jinking zigzag between the stems. Courtship belongs to the half-light: a low wandering flight over the trees at dusk, or a climbing and diving display in which air rushing past the outer tail feathers makes a bleating hum.

Shanks and phalaropes | Tringinae

9 species

Slim, long-legged waders with a straight or slightly upturned bill that is relatively fine. They stand in shallow water rather than on drying mud and feed actively: wading, picking from the surface, sometimes dashing after small fish with the bill open, where the shore sandpipers probe steadily in one place. In flight a white rump or a white wedge up the back is often the best mark, and they call loudly on rising — usually singly or in loose parties rather than in dense flocks. They nest in marsh, bog and forest, a few even in an old nest in a tree. The phalaropes swim: lobed toes let them float buoyantly and spin in tight circles to stir food upwards, and the female is the brighter bird while the male incubates.

Vagrants 18 species

Birds blown in from other continents, or from far outside their usual range.