The Semipalmated Sandpiper is one of the small, hard-to-tell-apart "peeps" that throng Michigan's mudflats and shorelines on migration, and it is the black-legged counterpart to the yellow-legged Least Sandpiper. Gray-brown above and white below, with black legs and a short, straight, blunt-tipped bill, it is best separated from similar peeps by its leg color, bill shape, and rather plain, cool-gray tones. Its name refers to the slight webbing ("semipalmations") between the bases of its toes, visible only in the hand.
Semipalmated Sandpipers breed on the Arctic tundra and are prodigious long-distance migrants, gathering by the hundreds of thousands at key staging areas before flying nonstop over the ocean to South America — a dependence on a few crucial stopover sites that helps explain why the species is now assessed as Near Threatened despite still occurring in large numbers. In Michigan they pass through on mudflats, shorelines, and flooded fields, often in busy flocks, probing and picking at the mud alongside other small sandpipers.
Feeds on aquatic insects, small crustaceans, and other invertebrates picked and probed from the surface and shallow layers of mudflats and shorelines. It forages busily in flocks, taking small prey from the mud and shallow water, and fuels its long migrations by feeding heavily at key stopover sites.
The Semipalmated Sandpiper has black legs and a short, straight, blunt bill, and cooler gray-brown tones, while the Least Sandpiper has yellow-green legs, a finer drooped bill, and browner plumage. Leg color is the quickest clue.
Although still abundant, the Semipalmated Sandpiper depends on a small number of critical migration staging areas, and declines plus that concentration led to its Near Threatened assessment. Threats at key stopover and wintering sites are major concerns.
As a migrant in spring and fall on mudflats, shorelines, marsh edges, and flooded fields, often in busy flocks with other small sandpipers. It nests on the Arctic tundra and does not breed in the state.
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