Wow! Thanks Dennis! Very good explanation, I have wondered about this as
I have been photographing over here in Port Townsend area. Much
appreciated!

On 2020-10-04 10:02, Dennis Paulson wrote:

> Dave,

>

> Many, perhaps all, sandpipers have touch-sensitive bills. You can

> actually see tiny sensory pits along the bill tip, and under them are

> Herbst corpuscles, which furnish that sensitivity. Look up "sandpiper

> sense of touch" online. Presumably this sense functions only when a

> potential prey item moves or when it is clearly distinct from the

> substrate. These pits are very prominent on the bills of birds such as

> dowitchers and snipes, quite evident in the skeleton when the

> rhamphotheca is removed, but I don't recall seeing them on godwit

> bills. It should be easy to find them by looking at study skins (in

> lieu of a live or dead bird in the hand), and maybe someone who has

> access to specimens (because of Covid-19, I can't go to the Slater

> Museum) can check this.

>

> Dennis Paulson

> Seattle

>

>> On Oct 4, 2020, at 9:37 AM, dgrainger at birdsbydave.com wrote:

>>

>> Over the last few weeks I have watched and photographed Marbled

>> Godwits working the sandy edge of Quimper Bay / Port Townsend, probing

>> with their long recurved bills, plunging into the wet sand at water's

>> edge. What I am curious about, having seen them come up with food

>> fairly frequently.

>>

>> My question is: how do these feeders sense that they have located

>> something edible? I thought that it could be touch, feeling a

>> different density of an object, or perhaps even taste or smell.

>>

>> Those Godwits were quick about their repeated probing plunges, jamming

>> those bills several inches into the sand just as the receding water

>> kept the spot wettest. Quimper Bay is usually very calm water: the

>> edge where I was watching had just little ripples reaching shore. Time

>> was on rising tide, about 3/4 in.

>>

>> I asked the Near Universe, Dr Google, but found nothing about it.

>> Anybody out there that can educate me?

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