Texan Spotted Sandpipers

Tringa macularia

The Spotted Sandpiper winters from Southern and Central California and east across the southern USA to Georgia in North America and south to northern Argentina in South America. Breeding territories are a bit further north, and extend from the Pacific Northwest, through the southern Intermountain states, and east to the mid-Atlantic coast over most of the North American continent to Canada and Alaska.

There are a couple of readily identifiable traits in this species. One is their bouncing gate when walking on a foraging campaign. They are reminiscent of dippers and pipits when so engaged. Another trait is their uneven wingbeats and downward slanted wings when in flight, especially when gliding in for a landing.

Spotted Sandpipers share a practice with phalaropes called polyandry by science. Females take on multiple mates and leave the males to tend to nesting and child-rearing duties. If unable to find additional mates, the females may stick around to care for and raise the young of the last mating.

This gallery displays images of the birds I met in Brownsville, but there are 34 images in the <Species Gallery> of birds I’ve met throughout the western USA, Canada and Alaska.