A Wood Sandpiper (Tringa glareola) feeding in the muddy marshes of the Ngorongoro Crater, Tanzania.
Cooling its heels
Meet the Wood Sandpiper (Tringa glareola), an elegant wader that proves you don’t need to be large to be a legendary traveler. Despite its name, you rarely find this bird in a forest; it is a freshwater specialist that thrives along the muddy margins of inland ponds, marshes, and flooded grasslands.
With its yellowish-green legs and brownish upperparts dusted in speckles, it’s a striking sight. Its most distinctive feature, however, is the bold white eyebrow stripe (supercilium) that extends well past the eye, giving the bird a perpetually alert, wide-eyed expression.
Life on the Move
I caught a glimpse of this particular traveler feeding in the Ngorongoro Crater, Tanzania, this past February. The timing is key: the Wood Sandpiper is only a seasonal resident in Africa, migrating here to winter in the sun. When the northern summer arrives, it will embark on a massive journey back to the subarctic wetlands of Eurasia—nesting everywhere from the Scottish Highlands to the Siberian tundra.