Spotted Sandpiper
Actitis macularius
Spotted Sandpiper · Green-Wood Cemetery · 29 August 2026
A Spotted Sandpiper at Green-Wood at the end of August, on its way south from a breeding lake somewhere in the north to a winter on a Central American shore. It is the one sandpiper that breeds on nearly every lake and river in North America, and it turns up on cemetery ponds in migration where no other shorebird would.
No spots at all on this bird, which is exactly what non-breeding and juvenile Spotted Sandpipers look like; the bold black spotting on the underside is a breeding-season feature only, and this one has already lost it. The constant tail-bobbing at rest is a better everyday field mark than the plumage it is named for.
Birds, insects, plants and other wildlife, mostly from Brooklyn, with some from further afield.
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