New England Shorebird Guide, a photographic guide freely available on the Bird Observer site, now covers 28 species of shorebirds:
https://www.birdobserver.org/Better-Birding/New-England-Shorebird-Guide.
Due to severe declines in the populations of most shorebird species over the past several decades, I think it is important that bird and nature-lovers become as familiar as possible with these birds and advocate for their conservation. Shorebirds are reputed to be difficult to identify. This may be true for some species, but it is also partly due to the fact that most shorebird species are highly migratory and travel long distances during the course of a year. Most are in our region for only a few weeks every year, so they are easy to miss and hard to learn to identify.
By learning their habits and habitats, as well as their behavior, shapes, and plumages, most observers can identify 20-plus species—perhaps up to 30 species of shorebird—in New England and adjoining states and provinces each year. To increase the fan base of appreciation for these birds, I created this visual guide to shorebirds of New England, and Bird Observer is generously providing free access on its website.
The guide is designed primarily as a visual aid that can be used in the field on your smart phone; it can also be installed on your tablet or computer. I have prepared a brief user manual for the guide:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1u4zUC7Ghrob3bcjI5-v80kVjAOfNNR0o/view?usp=sharing.
Here are instructions for installing an icon on your iPhone that directly accesses the app:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NVpWGWzwt4RXGGGULi7JVxfZlJ5e14WZ/view.
Here are similar instructions for installing the icon on an Android phone:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ptRhn76edyzlMy-BPq5Kj28FmcQDKfYd/view
I hope you find this guide useful for finding and identifying shorebirds in our region. It is also important that you communicate to me the shortcomings, errors, and inconsistencies of the guide so that I can improve future versions. You can reach me at sohzendeh@gmail.com.
New England Shorebird Guide content was created by Soheil Zendeh. Marsha Salett of Bird Observer was the editor. Eric Swanzey, web manager for Bird Observer and other Massachusetts birding sites, created the website/app. Instructions for installing the guide icon on your iPhone were provided by Jay Dia. Instructions for installing the icon on an Android phone were provided by Eric Mueller. The photos in the guide were contributed by many generous photographers.
July, August and September are peak migration period for most shorebirds. Enjoy them right now.
Soheil Zendeh
Littleton, MA
The QR Code below goes to https://www.birdobserver.org/Better-Birding/New-England-Shorebird-Guide
https://www.birdobserver.org/Better-Birding/NESG goes to New England bird guides, tips, tools, and tutorials
