42 NEBRASKAland • MAY 2015
Arriving to prairie
nesting grounds in the
northern Great Plains,
this long-billed curlew
raises its wings in
territorial display.
L
ong-billed curlews. Marbled godwits. Wilson's phalaropes.
American avocets. Greater yellowlegs. Their names are as
curious as their appearances.
With more than 60 species of shorebirds in North America,
some of these mostly small to medium-sized birds with
thin bills and long legs can appear as odd in appearance as
masquerade ball characters.
Perhaps their most distinctive features are their bills: some
are very long, some very short, curved up, curved down, or
straight. Each bill is smartly designed for the prey that they
hunt while wading the shallows and patrolling shorelines
of lakes, rivers, sandbars and open grasslands, picking and
probing their way for small terrestrial and aquatic insects,
worms and other assorted proteins.
Take the American avocet for example, with its thin and
sensitive upturned bill that it sweeps back and forth just
under the water's surface for brine shrimp like a person
cleaning the sidewalk with a broom. Or the formidable long-
billed curlew, as tall as a red-tailed hawk, and as proficient a
hunter with its nearly eight-inch long downward curved bill
stalking grasshoppers in the Nebraska prairie in summer as it
is probing for aquatic insects in the sand and surf of the Texas
Gulf Coast in winter.
Collectively, these far-flung shorebirds can migrate from
wintering grounds as far south as Central America and travel
as far north as the Arctic tundra and the edge of the Bering
Sea to breed. A few hardy species such as the greater and
lesser yellowlegs will show up in Nebraska as early as March
with the big pulse of migrating waterfowl and cranes, but the
vast majority will push through quietly in April and May.
Moving Through
Grasslands
Photos and story by Michael Forsberg