Wildlife Watching Wednesday: The Fidgety Solitary Sandpiper

By: Tom Berg

There are 85 species of sandpipers in the world, and although 43 species live in North America, the Solitary Sandpiper stands out among them.  This slender shorebird is mostly brown above with a bright white belly.  Its head and the upper parts of its breast are streaked with brown, and its back and wings have tiny white spots on them.  It has a distinctive white eye-ring and its long bill is dark – almost black at the tip.  Long legs allow it to wade in the shallows easily as it hunts for food.

One of the most striking features of the solitary sandpiper is the way it walks along the shallows in search of food.  It is almost always moving, and as it walks it bobs its tail up and down.  It almost looks nervous as it bobs and fidgets along the shoreline, stopping and then starting again in a seemingly never-ending trail of dipping and bobbing.

Solitary sandpipers can be seen during the spring migration along the shores of marshes, swamps, lakes, ponds, creeks and rivers.  Marshlands with rotting trees in the water are a favorite feeding area.  They wade in the shallows, snapping up aquatic insects, midges, worms, leeches, snails, crayfish and even small fish.  Frogs, salamanders and tadpoles are also a part of their diet.

After migrating through the United States from South America and Central America, solitary sandpipers breed in the far north and the arctic.  Northern Canada and Alaska is their final destination for nesting, and unlike all other sandpipers in North America which nest on the ground, solitary sandpipers prefer to nest in trees.  Surprisingly, they don’t even build their own nests, either.  They usually re-use nests originally built by songbirds like jays, robins and others.

Solitary sandpipers – as the name implies – are usually seen foraging alone during their spring and fall migrations.  In fact, these sandpipers will usually try to intimidate and chase away other individuals of the same species.  Amazingly, however, they tend to ignore birds of other species that might be searching for food in the same general area.

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