Scolopacidae – Woodcock, Snipe, Sandpipers & Allies

The Scolopacidae are a family of waders that includes sandpipers, snipe, woodcock, curlews, stints, godwits, dowitchers, turnstones, phalaropes and shanks.

Don Taylor & Stephen Message are, respectively, the author and illustrator of: Waders of Europe, Asia & North America – Don Taylor writes:

Wader identification has fascinated me right from my early birding years back in the 1950s, when I was fortunate enough to find the attractive and elusive little Jack Snipe wintering on both my local patches – Hampstead Heath and Brent Reservoir. The latter soon provided other identification challenges with sightings of Wood Sandpiper and Ruff. I remember in May 1959 hitchhiking from Hampstead Garden Suburb to that Mecca of sites, Wisbech sewage-farm, to see my first Temminck’s Stint.

My interest was strengthened later that same year, when I observed the delightful Red-necked Phalaropes on their breeding grounds in the Outer Hebrides and the confiding Dotterel on the Cairngorms. However, it was probably the two years I spent living beside Lake Ontario, from August 1962 to July 1964, when I had the challenge of identifying the various ‘peeps’ in their autumn plumages that hooked me completely. Since settling in Kent late in 1964, there have been numbers of opportunities to add further species to my ever expanding list, including such rarities as Sociable Plover in 1968, Buff-breasted Sandpiper in 1977, Terek Sandpiper in 1982, Sharp-tailed Sandpiper in 1987 and Oriental Pratincole in 1988.

Leading tours in Europe and farther afield created greater opportunities and I found one of my favourite waders, a Cream-coloured Courser, in Southern Spain in 1979. However, it was on trips specifically planned to add new wader species, with Tony Prater and David Rosair, which really helped us expand our individual wader lists. Three weeks in Argentina and Chile in November 1979 produced another 17 species for me, including my favourite, the Diademed Plover.

I spent a month in Australia and New Zealand in January 2007, when I was able to add another 22 species, including the New Zealand Snipe on Enderby Island, during a Sub-Antarctic cruise. In May 2006 I visited Estonia to see the last of the European waders that had, until then, eluded me – Great Snipe. This was followed by two single species quests in 2008; Japan in March for Amami Woodcock and Thailand in November for the recently re-discovered White-faced Plover. To bring the story right up to date I enjoyed a week with Wirebirds (St Helena Plover) on St Helena in July/August 2009 and am now left with just a dozen more to see around the world, however these may take some time as they include such isolated locations as the Tuamotu and Chatham Islands, as well as four different South American countries for four snipe species.

Mentioning long periods of time, Stephen has had to wait far too long to see this book published, after a lengthy six-year gestation period. It was David Rosair who came up with the idea of illustrating confusing species together and I recommended that he ask Stephen to produce the plates. Sadly, or fortunately from my point of view, when David was unable to continue with the writing, Stephen suggested that I should be asked.

It has been a great pleasure working with him and, after about two years of writing and further painting, we are naturally delighted to see the book finally published and we are pleased with the design work, particularly of the American version.

Stephen remembers, as a 12 year-old living in his home village of Benenden, repeatedly flushing a small dark bird from the village pond.

I noted that it had a white rump, gave a distinctive call and I eventually realised, of course, that it was a Green Sandpiper. Apart from having seen Snipe and Lapwing locally, this wader was effectively my introduction to this fascinating and in many instances highly migratory family. I realised that this meant virtually anything could turn up anywhere creating exciting opportunities. My first ever watercolour of a bird, painted at the age of 10, was indeed a Northern Lapwing, which I presented to my Grandparents. The Lapwing is still one of my top subjects and my favourite wader species.

We hope that many will enjoy the continuing challenge of wader identification; for which I would like to recommend an excellent very recently published tome Shorebirds of the Northern Hemisphere by Richard Chandler, a renowned wader photographer. It is filled with probably half-a-lifetime of his superb photographs to illustrate a detailed text.