We recently received a photo taken in the Boothbay region a few weeks ago. It showed several least sandpipers and a short-billed dowitcher feeding together in a small marshy area. It may be hard to believe, but these are southbound migrants, starting off the long fall bird migration season. In fact we have sometimes taken to calling the short-billed dowitcher the “Fourth of July” bird here in Maine because we usually see the first southbound flocks of that species around Independence Day.

Both least sandpipers and short-billed dowitchers are one of a small cadre of birds in the sandpiper family whose breeding range is largely within the Boreal Forest region of Canada and Alaska. This is unlike the majority of sandpipers and plovers we see migrating through our region, which instead breed mostly even farther north in the Arctic. But least sandpipers, short-billed dowitchers, lesser yellowlegs, greater yellowlegs, and solitary sandpipers all have more than 50 percent of their breeding range within the Boreal Forest that lies immediately south of the Arctic region. The Boreal Forest region of Canada and Alaska is famously rich with wetlands — by some estimates, having more surface freshwater than anywhere else in the world and with one of greatest concentrations of peatlands on Earth. In fact, the Hudson Bay-James Bay peatlands, which extend across an area more than 500 miles wide, may be the largest peatland complex in existence. Peatlands and other wetlands across the Boreal Forest region are what species like the short-billed dowitcher zero in on for nesting.

Given that most of these shorebirds only pass through Maine on their way north in mid to late May, it always seems incredible that some of them could be returning south again by the end of July. For some of these individuals, the return trip may mean that they had an unsuccessful nesting attempt — since they typically only nest once during the brief northern summer, unsuccessful breeders have no reason to hang around up north. But the bulk of these early July migrants are probably coming south for a different reason. Sandpipers don’t feed their young; the young are born fully feathered so the primary duties of the adults are to defend the chicks from predators and keep them warm when they are still small. Short-billed dowitchers are one of a number of sandpipers in which the female departs soon after the young hatch, leaving the male to defend and brood the young. Thus, likely many of the earliest arriving southbound short-billed dowitchers (and perhaps other sandpiper species as well) are females, newly liberated from chick-rearing duties and headed south.

At one time, short-billed dowitchers and most other sandpipers and plovers were hunted throughout their migration routes, including here in Maine, initially for personal consumption but later by so- called market hunters who took them to sell in markets or to ship to hotel restaurants in cities. Many of the sandpipers and plovers of North America had dramatic population losses during that time and one, the Eskimo curlew, never recovered and is now presumed extinct. It is a surprise to many of us in the U.S. to find that in parts of the Caribbean, the hunting of sandpipers and plovers continues even today, although major efforts are being made to regulate, and hopefully, phase out the hunting of these vulnerable and fascinating birds.