I’ve just moved to Brunswick, Maine and I’m struggling with shorebirds. I’m a long time birder, but never much at the shore. This video helped. I’ve been on bird walks with experts and they tend to make it more complicated with too much information. My technique is to go on a walk and then go back by myself to see if I’ve learned anything. Thanks for this video - love your channel.
I wish I could like this video more than once. I’m about as far from shoreline as o can be in the hot dry Plains, but the concepts should carry over at times. Birds are more sparse in most places here. Lord of the usual suspects in cities, but we are just about overrun with at least three types of doves and just about all year. I like them better than the grackles the doves seem to like feeding off the ground from where my sunflowers have leaned forward and dropped seeds. I’ve not been able to identify the small birds that are feeding directly off the plants even hanging upside down picking sunflower seeds straight from the flowers. If you write a book or have written one I’d really like to buy a copy. Your common sense approach to identification is hugely helpful.
Awesome video Bob. Thanks for your very much common sense information! I really enjoyed shorebirding this spring from a little local freshwater marsh here in Houston. You're the best.
Too funny! I was just thinking this morning over breakfast that I gotta get back to Houston to do some shorebirding soon. It really is awesome along that whole section of coast.
I really enjoy your videos. Love your common-sense approach to shorebird ID. Also, I volunteer to follow behind you to pick up & save those torn-out shorebird pages from your field guide, in case you decide you need them some day.
Living in SE AZ, shorebirds have always been a distant nightmare. Glad you lived the nightmare for me. Now I can walk past mud puddles during migration without fear of being ambushed by a shorb. 🤙
Love your channel, we’re traveling to Maine next week from Michigan. We’ll be staying 2 days in Portland and then 6 days on small lake by Ellsworth & Hancock - any suggestions on places to go birding? Thanks and keep up the great work - both informative and entertaining.
Thanks. You may notice warblers migrating through the lake area. They're on the move, and morning activity can get attention. You won't be far from Schoodic Point. It's quieter than the rest of Acadia National Park. The ocean point can be interesting, but so can the bike paths - easy to walk with good viewing of any birds around. Still a lot of shorebirds moving through. They can even be on the muddy edges of drawn-down lakes. Most will be farther up the coast on the big mudflats, though. If you get on the Bar Harbor Whale Watch boat, it's pelagic birding season offshore. I'm going out on Sunday.
I needed this one about 3 weeks ago! am relatively new at this. have mostly songbirds so far. this fall's goal is shorebirds. here in WV we started getting them about 3 weeks ago. Debby dropped some good ones. semi palmated sandpiper from least is driving me crazy. especially when they have muddy legs 😵💫😂😂 thnx
I bird Massachusetts - Marshfield to Plum Island:, VER YHELPFUL!! You should also mentions Sanderlings, Red Knots, Godwits, Hudsonian and Marbled. Other keys to identification, location on beach and feeding style
I know, right? I fished it out of the cellar months ago. Now I can't part with it. The brim can be adjusted for any angle of sun and wind, and the chin strap is useful on a boat. Plus it's ugly!
Umm, is a great skua a shorebird? And if so, isn't a long-billed curlew bigger? And I think there's a curlew in Asia that's even bigger. Or maybe I'm mistaken. That happens.
@Bob_Duchesne, in case you should know, shorebirds are defined by the order Charadriiformes as a whole, therefore gulls, skuas, sternids, and alcids are shorebirds, the long-billed curlew is not technically the largest living shorebird, but it is of course the largest shorebird that's called a wader, among shorebirds (order Charadriiformes), waders are a paraphyletic group because some families of waders are more closely related to gulls, skuas, sternids, and alcids than they are to other waders, based on here the sheathbills and families most closely related to them are considered the closest living relatives of the gulls, skuas, sternids, and alcids.
