The bill is orange with a dark tip. After mating and laying her eggs, she abandons the the male who must then take on all of the parental duties of incubation and caring for the chicks. Females may mate with multiple males and each father broods the eggs … The body is brown on top and white underneath with black spots. Adults have short yellowish legs and an orange bill with a dark tip. She is the one that establishes the territory by driving other females away. One-third of females have 2 mates and clutches, 1/4 have 3 and some females have 4 or even 5. During an intensive study of a Spotted Sandpiper population nesting on an island in a Minnesota lake, two ornithologists, Stephen Maxson and Lewis Oring, noticed that many nests contained fewer eggs than the usual clutch of four. was nearly at the top of a little embankment alongside a railway track, and it was the invariable custom of the incubating bird whenever I … It reaches the southern limit of that range in Tennessee, where just a few pairs breed in scattered locations across the state. The female spotted sandpiper, for instance, migrates early to arrive at a potential nesting site before the male. The female lays 4 eggs, and then leaves the male to incubate them while she finds another mate. When many males are available, a female may lay the first They lay 3 to 4 eggs in the nest, and only the male Spotted Sandpiper will keep the eggs warm. The female will often raise … Clutches comprise 3–5 eggs, which hatch in about 20 days. Spotted Sandpipers are olive brown above and white with round black spots below Spotted sandpiper eggs are vulnerable to predation by predators such as deer mice, mink, weasels, river otters, yellow-headed blackbirds, red-winged blackbirds, song sparrows and ruddy turnstones. 446 Mo•s•, Nesting Habits of the Spotted Sandpiper [Auk toct. Spotted Sandpipers are polyandrous. Spotted Sandpiper, wild bird pictures and photography, songs calls and music, bird watching and birding tips, bird identification, food, eggs nests and houses, birds of America, habitat. Brown above and white below, with large, well-defined dark spots on the breast. One of the few shorebirds to breed in the Willamette Valley. The spotted sandpiper is a medium-sized shorebird with a rounded belly. ... Nests are built on the ground within 100 yards of water. Chicks are predated by common grackles , American crows , gulls and mink . The female lays eggs in a nest built on the ground. The Spotted Sandpiper is the most widespread breeding sandpiper in North America, ranging coast to coast across the northern half of the continent.. In this way, she may breed with up to four males, each of which will raise a clutch. The Spotted Sandpiper has the ability to fly straight up out of the water and is one of the few shorebirds that will dive into the water to escape from predators.