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Sandpipers
& Phalarope
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Habitat:Stream and river banks in the Tabonuco, Palm
and Palo Colorado forest types.
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Discription: This bird has an olive-brown back, a white
eye line and white under parts with tiny round spots.
In winter when the Spotted Sandpiper visits Puerto Rico,
the round spots are gone. It has a reddish-orange black
tipped bill. It is 7 to 7 ¾ inches (18 to 20 centimeters)
in length and females weigh 1 ½ to 1 ¾ ounces (43 to
50 grams) while males weigh 1 ¼ to 1 ½ (34 to 43 grams).
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Weight: 5-7 ounces.
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Length: 11-12.5 inches.
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Wingspan: 17-20 inches.
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Sandpipers are found on shores and in wetlands around the globe. Many
are highly migratory with distinctive breeding Because many are long
distance migrants, vagrants occur widely and the search for these
vagrants is the highlight of early autumn for many American and European
field observers. Likewise, many of these arctic breeders spend the
non-breeding period well south of the equator, brightening the lives
of birders in the austral summer (our winter). Sandpipers are a highly
diverse family which include the ground-dwelling snipes & woodcocks
to the highly pelagic Red Phalarope. Biochemically they seem to have
arisen from a single ancestor but underwent an explosive evolution
in the early Tertiary after a great wave of extinctions in the late
Cretaceous period (Piersma 1996). Today, the wide variety of sandpipers,
and the close relationships of many, present numerous identification
challenges. The identification literature alone is impressive. Further,
the beautiful patterns and colors on juvenal-plumaged birds are among
the most striking in the world, while the striking breeding plumage
feathers serve to camouflage adults on their breeding grounds on the
arctic tundra. |
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| Bird rescue & bird adoption;
parrot refuge/rescue & placement for unwanted birds. |
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| Check out our list of local
birds broken down by your state and different types of
species. |
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| Migrating birds stay on track
because of chemical reactions in their bodies that are
influenced by the Earth's magnetic field... |
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Part
I
November
19, 2004