Few of us are able to study Darwin’s finches in their native Galapagos Islands, but we can observe evolutionary adaptations among local birds. Shorebirds developed extraordinary diversity in their bills, enabling them to take advantage of separate ecological niches. Coastal estuaries, inland ponds, grasslands, deserts and even forests are home to shorebirds because of varied adaptations enabling them to find food. During migration, hundreds of thousands of shorebirds feed together at critical stopover sites to refuel along their long-distance journeys. On mudflats, for example, members of mixed-species flocks may feed side by side because they reap food sources from different depths in the mud, or they might spread into differing depths of water. Survival of migratory shorebirds depends upon conservation of these rich habitats.
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keywords (additional): |
birds, Charadriiformes |
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