California Ricelands and Waterbird Habitat
- Part I:
Overview of Ricelands and Waterbird Habitat - Part II:
Overview of Waterbird Ecology and Conservation
Goals/Needs - Part III:
Sacramento Valley Species Snapshot - Part IV:
Riceland Shorebirds - Part V:
Riceland Wading Birds - Part VI:
Riceland Marsh Birds - Part VII:
Riceland Waterfowl - Part VIII:
Cooperative Partnerships to Enhance Ricelands Habitats - Part IX:
Riceland Waterbirds Future Vision - Part X:
Technical References
Part IV: Riceland Shorebirds
Shorebirds, as their name says, are found mainly along shores, on mudflats, or in shallowly flooded habitat where water depth is between 1.5 and 4 inches deep. They rarely swim to find food, so their feet are not webbed. Instead, they have long, splayed toes so they don’t sink into the mud, and they usually have long legs to walk in flooded habitats. Many shorebirds probe shallow water, soft mud or moist soil with long, slender bills for bugs, shellfish and worms; some sweep the water column and mud to feed; and some peck at the surface.
Dunlin and Long-billed Dowitchers are small to medium-sized shorebirds. During migration and winter, they forage in shallowly flooded rice fields that have little or no plant stubble. Long-billed Dowitchers have longer legs and bills than Dunlin, so they are able to explore deeper waters and probe deeper in the mud for food.
The Long-billed Curlew – the largest shorebird in North America – has a very long, curved bill that is strong enough to probe deep into moist soil for insects or other invertebrates. During migration and winter, this bird looks for food in rice fields with some vegetation or rice stubble remaining, and it can explore many different depths of standing water as well as wet soil for food.
Black-necked Stilts and American Avocets are large shorebirds that display some of the brightest and most striking color patterns. They benefit from rice in both the breeding season and in the winter. They nest on islands but will also nest on internal levees of rice fields with sparse vegetation or on exposed dirt clods or mounds in the flooded rice paddy. In the winter, they forage in shallowly flooded rice fields that have little or no vegetative stubble.
In 2002, the ricelands and wetlands of the Sacramento Valley were designated collectively as a site of international importance to shorebirds by the Western Hemisphere Shorebird Reserve Network (WHSRN).
This area of California supports regionally important populations of at least 12 species of shorebirds, including those mentioned above as well as the Least Sandpiper, Western Sandpiper, Black-bellied Plover, Killdeer, Semipalmated Plover, Greater Yellowlegs, and Wilson’s Snipe. In total, the site is used by over 200,000 shorebirds annually.