Ode to Shorebirds

This time of year, in many parts of the country, birders are out watching shorebirds.  Identifying shorebirds can be more than a bit challenging.  Some birders love it.  Some...not so much!  ;-)  On the Birding Ohio Facebook group recently there's been a lot of discussion of shorebird identification, and my friend Susan Williams threw down a challenge.  If we all loved shorebirds so much, why didn't we just write a poem about them?   Several of us took her up on her challenge.  I thought you might enjoy reading a few of these Odes to Shorebirds....

Shorebirds are travelers

From fields far flung

With lovely names like "plover" 

that roll right off the tongue

~kimberly kaufman

I seen this little bird, 

it wasn't out too deep, 

I double checked my field guide, 

and thought it was a peep.

~jeff loughman

If a Dunlin doesn't know

whether a Willet will not show

how a Turnstone tosses stones

while leaving Solitaries alone

to watch the Plovers on the shore

whose antics make the Stilts snore

then the Knots do not care

to follow the Curlews through the air

and the Avocets are averse

to hearing birders curse

waking Godwits from their sleep

with a cry of "It's a peep!"

~katie Andersen

I thought I heard a shorebird,

Calling overhead. 

My mind said, "Sure, bird"

And I fell back into bed.”

~kathi hutton