To make it easier to picture the various sandpipers in the wild, browse the images below.

 

The red knot samdpiper (calidris canutus) has the longest migration of any bird. In lthe new world it migrates from their breeding grounds in the tundra of the Arctic circle in the north to Tierra del Fuego in the south. In Europe and Asia it migrates from the Arctic circle in Russia to Africa, Papua New Guinea, Australia, and New Zealand. They breed on the drier tundra and sparsely vegetated hillsides. They migrate primarily along intertidal areas near coastal inlets, estuaries, and bays with mudflats, and open sandy beaches.

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The Least sandpiper (calidris minutilla) can be found from the wet tundra and forests of northern Canada and Alaska, where they breed in the summer, south on their migration through the United States to the edges of the mudflats, marshes and other water borders of the southern United States, Central America, the Caribbean and South America to northern Chile and Brazil. They are not common on ocean beaches, although you may see them there.

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The greater yellowlegs (tringa melanoleuca) can be found from southern Canada and Alaska south to the southernmost tips of Chile and Argentina, in South America. In the summer, this long legged shorebird breeds in southern Canada and Alaska in muskeg bogs with small coniferous islands and lots of clearings. During the winter in the northern hemisphere, it migrates south through the United States to the southern United States and winters from there all the way south to the southern tip of South America.