For all the books written about rare species, there is something refreshingly comforting when a new book comes along about ones that are delightfully common. Indeed, even the very name of one of the two specie that are the subject of Phil Holland’s recently published Common & Spotted Sandpipers implies its common status.
Described as the “two most ubiquitous shorebirds in the world,” one or the other of these two species can be found on every continent in the world save Antarctica. And between them, they exhibit a sufficient number of the features and behaviors of shorebirds (also called waders) to make the excellent subjects upon which to build a better understanding of the larger and astonishingly diverse ornithological Order.
