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The variety of bill sizes and shapes among the sandpipers is astounding! Many sandpipers have sensitive nerve receptors in their bill tips, so they can find unseen prey through touch, odor, and pressure changes. Those sandpipers with long, straight bills — like the Long-billed Dowitcher — are often described as "stitching." As the bird probes for food, its beak moves rapidly up and down, like the needle on a sewing machine.
BirdNote®
Probing with Sandpipers
Written by Bob Sundstrom
This is BirdNote.
[Sound of waves and Sanderlings]
Sandpipers – like these Sanderlings at the beach – are hunched over, probing industriously, as if drilling for oil. But sandpiper bills are far more than drills. Many sandpipers have sensitive nerve receptors in their bill tips, so they can find unseen prey through touch, odor, and pressure changes. And so, they feed even at night.
[Sound of waves and Sanderlings]
The variety of bill sizes and shapes among the sandpipers is astounding! The Long-billed Curlew sports a slender, down-curved bill that may reach nine inches long. With such a tool, the curlew can probe deeply in the mud for marine worms, or snatch a grasshopper from deep in the grass.
[Long-billed Curlew song]
At the other extreme of bill length, the turnstone lives up to its name. Using its short, stout bill as a crowbar, a turnstone turns aside rocks and mats of dried seaweed, in search of small crustaceans.
[Black Turnstone]
Those sandpipers with long, straight bills – such as dowitchers – are often described as “stitching.” As the bird probes for food, its beak moves rapidly up and down, like the needle on a sewing machine.
[Short-billed Dowitcher]
April brings many thousands of sandpipers to Delaware Bay on the Atlantic Coast and Grays Harbor and San Pablo Bay on the Pacific. These and other such wildlife refuges are crucial to the migration of these fascinating birds.
[Sound of waves and Sanderlings]
For BirdNote, I'm Mary McCann.
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Senior Producer: Mark Bramhill
Producer: Sam Johnson
Managing Producer: Jazzi Johnson
Managing Producer: Ariana Remmel
Content Director: Jonese Franklin
Shorebird calls provided by The Macaulay Library of Natural Sounds at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, New York. Sanderlings and Long-billed Curlew recorded by R.S. Little. Black Turnstone recorded by G.M. Bell. Short-billed Dowitcher call recorded by C.A. Sutherland.
BirdNote's theme music was composed and played by Nancy Rumbel and John Kessler.
© 2013 BirdNote April 2013/2026 Narrator: Mary McCann
ID# SotB-sandpiper-01-2011-04-19
Bob Sundstrom
Writer
Mary McCann
NarratorSights & Sounds
