This is Bird Note.

Sandpipers, like these sanderlings at the beach, are hunched over, probing industriously, as if drilling for oil.

But sandpiper bills are far more than drills.

Many sandpipers have sensitive nerve receptors in their bill tips,

so they can find unseen prey through touch, odor, and pressure changes.

And so they feed even at night.

The variety of bill sizes and shapes among the sandpipers is astounding.

The long-billed curlew sports a slender, down-curved bill that may reach nine inches long.

With such a tool, the curlew can probe deeply in the mud for marine worms or snatch a grasshopper from deep in the grass. At the other extreme of bill length, the turnstone lives up to its name.

Using its short stout bill as a crowbar, a turnstone turns aside rocks and mats of dried

seaweed in search of small crustaceans.

Those sandpipers with long straight bills, such as dowchers, are often described as

stitching. As the bird probes for food, its beak moves rapidly up and down like the needle on a

sewing machine. April brings many thousands of sandpipers to Delaware Bay on the Atlantic coast

and Grey's Harbor

and San Pablo Bay on the Pacific.

These and other such wildlife refuges

are crucial

to the migration of these fascinating birds.

For Bird Note, I'm Mary McCann.