Each year many birds migrate from their breeding grounds, up near the Arctic Circle, south to more hospitable climates. Some do not travel far, moving south only to find food, while others fly a great distance to their winter grounds.
The Baird's sandpiper is one of those birds that migrate a great distance each year. They fly from breeding grounds in northern Canada and Alaska to wintering grounds in central and southern South America.
Before they begin their long trip to South America in the fall they begin staging in Canada and the northern United States. For those of us living in North America this is the time when they are the most accessible.
Once they begin the migration they fly rapidly for long distances, they may cover up to 4000 miles nonstop, through the center of the United States then down through Mexico and Central America
I took these pictures while at a shorebird conference in South Dakota back in August of 2008. Although we saw many shorebirds at Salt Lake, an alkaline lake on the Minnesota and South Dakota border which is known for its shorebird habitat, the best spot we found for shorebirds was an empty farm field which had a large mud puddle in it. That is where we saw this Baird's Sandpiper.
We identified this sandpiper as a Baird's because its wings extended back past its tail. In our seminar we learned that for sandpipers this size, at least those that we find in this area of the world, only two types have wings that extend past their tail feathers, the Baird's and the white-rumped sandpiper. The white-rumped is lighter in color and has a white-rump.
