Walking along on the Ohio & Erie Canal Towpath, I occasionally come across this bird. The Solitary Sandpiper is not a social species. It is usually seen alone, although sometimes small numbers gather in suitable feeding areas.
This bird is usually found along the banks of wooded streams, in narrow marsh channels and sometimes along the edges of open mudflats. Solitary Sandpipers usually forage in shallow water, picking up food items from the surface or probing into the water and mud. They may also use their feet to stir up small creatures from the bottom.
These birds have a characteristic behavior of bobbing the front half of their bodies up and down. When alarmed, they often fly straight up in the air to escape, a flight pattern that is perhaps an adaptation to the closed wooded areas they inhabit.
They seek out both aquatic and terrestrial invertebrates as their main food source. These include insects and insect larvae, spiders and worms.
Its habit of nesting in the abandoned nests of other birds is unique among North American shorebirds, which generally nest on the ground.
A group of these birds has many collective nouns, including a “bind,” “contradiction,” “fling,” “hill,” and “time-step” of sandpipers.