These Western Sandpipers are part of the 1,300,000 shorebirds that use the Upper Bay of Panama each year during migration.


The city is growing and the most heavily used feeding areas are the mudflats closest to the city. The birds seen in the foreground need roosting areas during he highest tides, which are not found on city streets.


A Black-bellied Plover and a group of Short-billed Dowichers share the mudflat with Laughing Gulls. Gulls and other seabirds also migrate to the Bay of Panama during the winter months when seasonal upwelling produces a huge crop of fish for them to feed on.


This Ruddy Turnstone is one of several species that prefer to feed on rocky outcrops in the bay, instead of on mudflats.


Some of these Western Sandpipers in the Copper River Delta in Alaska may have been in Panama just a few weeks before this photo was taken.

*Pictures by Karl Kaufmann.