{"id":143249,"date":"2025-05-07T14:14:55","date_gmt":"2025-05-07T19:14:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/?p=143249"},"modified":"2025-09-07T16:01:16","modified_gmt":"2025-09-07T21:01:16","slug":"surfing-spotted-sandpipers-on-the-arkansas-river","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/2025\/05\/07\/surfing-spotted-sandpipers-on-the-arkansas-river\/","title":{"rendered":"Surfing Spotted Sandpipers On The Arkansas River"},"content":{"rendered":"

I saw something I\u2019d never seen before, Spotted Sandpipers riding fast-moving logs down the Arkansas River while foraging! Wild and totally unexpected!<\/p>\n

Not once, but three separate times. The first time I didn\u2019t have a camera in my hand, but I had it ready for the second and third.<\/p>\n

\"SpottedSpotted Sandpiper floating down the Arkansas River on a log<\/span><\/p>\n

Spotted Sandpipers. On logs. Floating down the Arkansas River at Sequoyah National Wildlife Refuge. And I don\u2019t mean logs bumping gently along a quiet bend.<\/p>\n

The river is high and moving fast, and these birds were cruising right along with it.<\/p>\n

They were walking on the logs as they floated, picking off food from the wet surfaces and from bits of detritus moving alongside.<\/p>\n

I watched them stay balanced as the current pushed everything downstream, calmly foraging like it was something they did every day.<\/p>\n

\"SpottedSpotted Sandpiper on a log floating down the Arkansas River<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve seen Spotted Sandpipers forage on shorelines and riverbanks, and the coastline of the Gulf of Mexico, weaving through rocks and along the edges, but never like this.<\/p>\n

Never floating, never catching food from the river while riding fast-moving logs. I didn\u2019t even know they did that.<\/p>\n

I can\u2019t say if this is something they only do when the water\u2019s up or if they\u2019ve been doing it all along and I\u2019ve just never caught it. Either way, it felt rare and a little bit unreal. I kept thinking, did that just happen?<\/p>\n

Nature always seems to have a few surprises left, and this was definitely one of them. Brief unexpected behaviors from the Spotted Sandpipers<\/span><\/a>, something that I won\u2019t forget anytime soon.<\/p>\n

Side note<\/strong>: My site is finally up and running on the new server. That took longer than expected, but my site? It\u2019s huge. There may be a few hiccups today as it populates across the net on the new server. Thanks for bearing with me.<\/p>\n

Life is<\/em> good.<\/p>\n

Mia<\/p>\n

Click here<\/span><\/a> to see more of my Spotted Sandpiper photos plus facts and information about this species.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I saw something I\u2019d never seen before, Spotted Sandpipers riding fast-moving logs down the Arkansas River while foraging! Wild and totally unexpected!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":143244,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27,13973,13974,504],"tags":[2209,4004,14023,16432,5423,4962,6840,5558,3521,992,274,2407,165,3996],"class_list":["post-143249","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-avian","category-oklahoma","category-sequoyah-national-wildlife-refuge","category-spotted-sandpipers","tag-actitis-macularia","tag-adult","tag-arkansas-river","tag-detritus","tag-floating","tag-log","tag-riding","tag-river","tag-sandpiper","tag-sandpipers","tag-shorebirds-2","tag-spotted-sandpiper","tag-spring","tag-water"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/spotted-sandpiper-log-arkansas-river-mia-mcpherson-1777.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p11Mom-Bgt","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":150461,"url":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/2025\/07\/18\/spring-spotted-sandpiper-in-breeding-plumage\/","url_meta":{"origin":143249,"position":0},"title":"Spring 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2022","format":false,"excerpt":"Why would I select a sandpiper photograph to express my Happy Father's Day wishes to all the dads out there?","rel":"","context":"In "Birds"","block_context":{"text":"Birds","link":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/category\/avian\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Spotted Sandpiper on a stump in a creek, Wasatch Mountains, Summit County, Utah","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/spotted-sandpiper-fathers-day-mia-mcpherson-8135.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/spotted-sandpiper-fathers-day-mia-mcpherson-8135.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/spotted-sandpiper-fathers-day-mia-mcpherson-8135.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, 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Utah","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/spotted-sandpiper-immature-bear-river-mbr-mia-mcpherson-9116.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/spotted-sandpiper-immature-bear-river-mbr-mia-mcpherson-9116.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/spotted-sandpiper-immature-bear-river-mbr-mia-mcpherson-9116.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/spotted-sandpiper-immature-bear-river-mbr-mia-mcpherson-9116.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":57634,"url":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/2019\/05\/05\/adult-spotted-sandpiper-on-the-weber-river\/","url_meta":{"origin":143249,"position":4},"title":"Adult Spotted Sandpiper On The Weber River","author":"Mia McPherson","date":"May 5, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Two days ago while near the Weber River up in Summit County I heard a familiar sound and I knew from that sound that a Spotted Sandpiper was nearby.","rel":"","context":"In "Birds"","block_context":{"text":"Birds","link":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/category\/avian\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Spotted Sandpiper on the Weber River, Wasatch Mountains, Summit County, Utah","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/spotted-sandpiper-weber-river-mia-mcpherson-1906.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/spotted-sandpiper-weber-river-mia-mcpherson-1906.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, 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