The Spotted Sandpiper is the little shorebird that can't stand still — walking Michigan's riverbanks and lakeshores with a constant, comical tail-bobbing "teeter," then skimming away low over the water on stiff, flickering wingbeats. In breeding plumage it wears bold dark polka dots below; fall and young birds are plain white-breasted.
Spotted Sandpipers rewrite the usual script: females arrive first, claim territories, court the males, and may pair with several in a season, leaving each male to incubate his own clutch and raise the chicks. It's one of the best-documented sex-role reversals in North American birds, playing out along nearly every quiet Michigan shoreline.
Aquatic and shoreline insects — midges, mayflies, beetles — plus small crustaceans and worms, picked from the water's edge with quick darts of the bill.
The teetering is constant and hard-wired — chicks do it almost from hatching. Its function is debated (crypsis against moving water is one theory), but it makes identification easy: teeter equals Spotted Sandpiper.
The bold breast spots are breeding plumage only. From late summer onward birds are plain below — identify them by the teeter, the white wedge in front of the wing, and the stiff-winged, flickering flight.
Yes — females may pair with up to four males in a season, and each male incubates and tends his clutch largely alone. Females are also slightly larger and more aggressive; it's a genuine role reversal.
March through November, with the best chances from April through October. They spend the winter well to the south of Michigan.
The bold breast spots are breeding plumage, worn from about May through July. Fall and winter birds are plain white below, and juveniles are plain with neat barring on the wing coverts — but the constant teetering gives them away at any season.
Other birds you might be looking at instead.
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