Stilt Sandpiper

Overview

Stilt Sandpiper: Medium sandpiper with gray-brown upperparts, white rump, heavily barred white underparts. Head has a dark cap, white eyebrows, and brown ear patches. Bill is long, black, and curved down at tip. Legs are long and gray-green. Powerful, direct flight on long, rapidly beating wings.

Range and Habitat

Stilt Sandpiper: Breeds from northeastern Alaska to northeastern Manitoba and northernmost Ontario. Spends winters in South America and casually north to Florida and southern California. Preferred habitats include sedge meadows interrupted by old beach ridges, eskers, or other elevated areas dominated by dwarf birch, heaths, willows, crowberries, and dryads.

INTERESTING FACTS

Stilt Sandpipers nest as close as 12 feet to other shorebirds, but at least 900 feet from their own kind, probably as a defense against predators.
Seeds picked from the water or dry ground can make up nearly one-third of the diet, depending upon their availability.
A group of sandpipers has many collective nouns, including a "bind", "contradiction", "fling", "hill", and "time-step" of sandpipers.

The Stilt Sandpiper is a small shorebird that prefers to breed in arctic regions of open tundra in North America. In winter months, this species will migrate long distances southward to South America and rarely western Europe. Nests are built on the ground, and 3 to 4 eggs are laid each year. When not in breeding season, the natural habitat of the Stilt Sandpiper includes inland waters versus open coastlands. This species is so named due to the long, skinny legs with which is wades through the shallow ocean waters near the coast. The conservation rating is currently Least Concern.