If identifying sparrows is difficult, then identifying shorebirds is impossible. For one thing, many more shorebird species either nest in or migrate through Maine.
Approximately 30 shorebird species pop up somewhere in our state every year, and they can look annoyingly similar. No wonder some frustrated birders just tear out the shorebird pages from the field guide and give up.
I agree. Why make life difficult? Birding is supposed to be fun. Tear out those pages.
Lots of migrating shorebirds are passing through Maine right now, and if you want to avoid the need to identify them, just avoid the shore, right?
If only it were that simple. Some shorebirds aren’t found at the shore.
And even some of the shore-loving shorebirds show up on the mudflats of lakes and ponds during migration, as water levels drop later in summer. Mud looks good wherever they can find it.
Whenever it’s time to identify a bird that belongs to a big group — such as warblers, sparrows, flycatchers and ducks — there is one overarching secret to sorting them out.
First, sort them into smaller piles. The objective is to reduce those 30 shorebird possibilities into smaller, manageable groups.
Fortunately, there are three simple ways to sort shorebirds into smaller piles. They practically sort themselves. Pile ‘em up by size, shape or location.
Size is usually the first impression. The least sandpiper is North America’s smallest shorebird, at six inches. The largest is the long-billed curlew. This resident of the northwestern United States and Canada is four times the size of a least.
In Maine, the largest shorebird is a willet, double the size of a least sandpiper.
The smallest shorebirds are the most troublesome. Fortunately, only about six Maine shorebirds fall into that category. The rest are larger. The bigger they are, the easier they are to identify.
Most have readily distinguishable features.
Some shorebirds have absurdly long bills. That group includes the short-billed dowitcher. OK, sorry. Bad example.
Some long bills curve upward, like the marbled and Hudsonian godwits that trickle through Maine during migration. Some have down-curved bills, like the whimbrel.
Some have distinguishing colors, like ruddy turnstones and purple sandpipers.
Pop quiz: What color legs do the greater and lesser yellowlegs have? Right. Yellow.
Bonus question: What color is a red knot? Right. Gray. They’re red in spring plumage but turn molt to gray in autumn.
Sorry, I didn’t say this would be easy. Now don’t you wish you hadn’t torn out those pages?
Shape is an especially important clue for the small shorebirds, often categorized as “peeps.” Most peeps passing through Maine fall into two categories: sandpipers and plovers. Sandpipers have longer, thinner bills. These include least, semipalmated, white-rumped and western sandpipers.
Plovers have shorter, thicker bills. Semipalmated plovers are abundant on the mudflats right now. Piping plovers stick to sandy beaches. Black-bellied and American golden-plovers are larger than both, but show the same stubby bill shape.
Some shorebirds are squat and tubby. Others are tall and gangly. What do you suppose a stilt sandpiper looks like?
Field guides lump all the shorebirds together in one section. No wonder they’re confusing. In practice, shorebirds sort themselves out by location.
The Wilson’s snipe is a shorebird that inhabits only freshwater marshes. The American woodcock lives inside the forest edge of fields. Neither will ever be seen on a beach.
Upland sandpipers nest in prairies out West. In Maine, they mostly nest in blueberry barrens. They’re never, ever on ocean mudflats.
Spotted sandpipers flit along rocky shoreline edges. They’re on virtually every lake, pond and stream in Maine. They’re also along the ocean edge. I’ve only seen them on mudflats a few times in my life.
You’ll find red and red-necked phalaropes grouped with the other shorebirds in the field guide. They breed in the freshwater potholes across the northern interior of the continent, then head directly for the ocean in migration, never touching down on beaches or mudflats.
The point is this. To better identify a shorebird, don’t identify it. First, assess what you’re looking at, and make a judgment about size, shape and location. Sort it into a pile with similar shorebirds. Then, instead of sorting through 30 birds, you’re only picking it out of half a dozen or so.
It would take the whole section of this newspaper to explain how to tell apart all the similar-looking shorebirds, but there’s no need for that. There are plenty of field guides available. You just need to tape the pages back in.
