noun

• A wading bird of the sandpiper family, with a long straight bill, breeding in arctic and subarctic North America and eastern Asia.

  Genus Limnodromus, family Scolopacidae: three species, in particular the short-billed dowitcher (L. griseus) and the long-billed dowitcher (L. scolopaceus)

  ‘Currently, visitors to the flats are likely to see sandpipers, avocets, oystercatchers, godwits, dowitchers, plovers and other shorebirds on their way south.’

  More example sentences

  • ‘Common species of shorebirds, such as yellowlegs, dowitchers, black-bellied plovers and ‘peep,’ are often joined by pectoral, stilt and solitary sandpipers.’
  • ‘Often described as looking like a yellowlegs and feeding like a dowitcher, the Stilt Sandpiper is a medium-sized, long-legged wader.’
  • ‘Birders can watch migratory species such as endangered clapper rails, dowitchers, and American avocets from the platform at Elsie Roemer Bird Sanctuary.’
  • ‘Overall foraging niches (linear combination of diet diversity, prey size, foraging-method diversity, and water depth) of avocets and dowitchers were segregated from each other and from Least and Western sandpipers.’
  • ‘For avocets and dowitchers, the handling costs of large prey is likely relatively low; however, large prey were relatively scarce compared to small prey.’
  • ‘You will need a field guide to help you identify these two species, but one way to recognize the dowitchers is by their method of feeding, described as a ‘sewing needle action.’’
  • ‘A flock of 10,000 to 20,000 dowitchers in Nevada's Stillwater National Wildlife Refuge moves in unison.’
  • ‘In flight, they show a pale trailing edge on their wings and a distinctive white blaze up their backs, which easily identifies them as dowitchers.’
  • ‘A short-billed dowitcher shot along the inlet - I heard its subdued triple toot - the only dowitcher I saw all season.’
  • ‘The female is about the size of a dowitcher, and the male is similar in size to a Greater Yellowlegs.’
  • ‘Four stately Whimbrels rested quietly amid the dowitchers, which moved quickly and kept probing the mud with their rod-like bills.’
  • ‘Between the Nauset Marshes, Corn Hill, Pilgrim Beach, and the Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary we saw 56 species, 13 of them new for Eric, including semipalmated plovers, long-billed dowitchers, lesser yellowlegs, and a horned lark.’