Pair of Dowitcher

Birders may have heard of dowitcher, but as for the rest of us I don't think so. These birds spend their summers in northern Canada, and winter in the southern U.S. and Mexico.

There are long-billed and short-billed dowitcher species, and they are difficult to tell apart.  Each has an extremely long bill!  This pair was feeding in the mud flats and shallows, and yes, they briefly stopped feeding to look at me as I was on the flats squatting to get a bird's eye view of them. As with many long-billed shore birds, dowitcher feed on invertebrates. I believe the shorebirds are all feeding on leeches, as I have a couple pics of yellowlegs snacking on leeches.

Here is what I'm doing to get better on bird identification.  I checked out the ebird report submitted by the birder I met yesterday, then looked up pictures of the 12 birds with which I was unfamiliar. As a result, today I was able to get photos of four of them:  northern pintail, greater yellowlegs, blue-winged teal, and dowitcher.  Still some work to do!