We met this shy, six-inch neighbor for about three seconds yesterday morning. You’d think that such a beautiful sandpiper would have been given a charmingly descriptive name. But, of course, noooo.
The bird namers decided that this dainty creature must be called a Semipalmated Sandpiper. They apparently assumed that we would know that “palmated” means webbed and that we would deduce from the “semi” preposition that this cutie is only partly webbed -- someplace. (A virtually invisible bit of extra skin between her toes helps to prevent her from sinking when feeding on floating seaweed and in mud.)
This Semipalmated neighbor does share one charming nickname with the other two of our tiniest sandpipers, the Least and Western Sandpipers. The three are collectively called “Peeps,” which is what they say a lot.
That unofficial description helps the many of us who usually find it difficult to differentiate one of these birds from another in the field (and especially in flight), but who do know a tiny thing when they see it and a peep when they hear it. Birding can be baffling to some of us. (Brooklin, Maine) See also the image in the first Comment space.