Sighting Record for Utah

Common name:	Upland Sandpiper
Scientific name:	Bartramia longicauda
Date:	August 26, 2025
Time:	12:11 PM
Length of time observed:	About 5 minutes
Number:	One
Age:	Unknown
Sex:	Unknown
Location:	Eastern shore of Ogden Bay, Great Salt Lake
County:	Weber
Latilong:	41.163222, -112.288750
Elevation:	4,191.5 feet above sea level
Distance to bird:	About 50 yards while bird was flying around us
Optical equipment:	First glimpse by naked eye, then used binoculars: John Neill (Swarovski SLC 8x30 WB), Jonathan Lautenbach (Nikon Monarch M5 10x42), Kyle Stone (Leica Trinovio 10x42 BN), Carter Page (Zeiss Conquest 10x42 HD), and Spencer Baxter (Swarovski CL companion 10x30).
Weather:	Mostly cloudy with light rain in areas, wind about 15-16 mph gusting at 17 mph , temperature was 61 degrees Fahrenheit. Weather data gathered from nearby Fremont Island National Weather Service station data.
Light Conditions:	Observations were made with adequate lighting under mostly cloudy conditions
Description: Size of bird:	Medium-sized shorebird (Greater Yellowlegs size)
(Description:) Basic Shape:	Sandpiper
(Description:) Overall Pattern:	Brown above and paler below
(Description:) Bill Type:	Straight and narrow; short in length
(Description:) Field Marks and Identifying Characteristics:	Jonathan Lautenbach: The bird was initially heard giving its somewhat bubbly pip-pip-pip call, mixing between three and four pips. Upon initially hearing the bird, I was thinking that this might have been a Whimbrel because that seemed more likely than an Upland Sandpiper to show up in Utah. After hearing the bird call multiple times, John was able to locate the bird flying relatively high and we were able to get decent looks. The bird had long legs, long wings, and a long neck. I noticed that the bird's bill was short (not long and down curved like a Whimbrel would have). The bird was relatively uniformed in color and was light brown above and paler below. One of the best field marks that I noticed was a white appearing outer primary contrasting against the rest of the darker primaries and gray sky behind the bird. Despite the bird being relatively far away, the white primary was still visible, as mentioned earlier they contrasted between the darker primaries and gray sky. Upon a review of a recording Carter was able to get, the call sounds like an Upland Sandpiper and not a Whimbrel, with the Merlin App helping confirm that this was an Upland Sandpiper. John Neill, Kyle Stone, Carter Page, and Spencer Baxter: The bird was first heard as a potential, unidentified shorebird making a distinctive four-note call. The Merlin Bird ID phone app identified the call as being from an upland sandpiper. The bird was then located visually flying and circling in an area to the north and northwest of our location. The call was definitively coming from the same lone bird, which was visually confirmed as a medium-sized shorebird. Colors were muted against the overcast, gray colored clouds, but the wings were darker on top (brownish) and lighter below. The upper side of the tail appeared lighter in contrast to the darker back. No wing bar was visible. The bill was short to medium in length and not prominent or obvious. In profile, the bill, head, and neck together extended in front of the wings about the same width as that of the wings, and the tail extended behind the wings about 1.5 times the length of the bill, head, and neck.
Song or call & method of delivery:	A four-note qui-di-di-du (from The Sibley Field Guide To Birds) call was heard distinctly, loudly, and repetitively while the bird was in flight. Two concurrent recordings of the calling bird were made about 6 feet apart using the phone app Merlin Bird ID. After the 0:55 mark of the recordings, the bird's calling becomes less repetitive and fainter. Also at this mark, some playback of upland sandpiper recordings were made from phones of other observers trying to confirm the original upland sandpiper identification from Merlin Bird ID. The playbacks differ from the calling bird by having either a three- or two-note call. The playback calls are very similar in appearance to the calling bird on the spectrogram (short rising notes in quick succession) though slightly lower in frequency. The spectrograms showed that the bird, on average, repeated its call every two seconds. All four notes were in the 2-3 kilohertz range with the fourth note shorter and lower than the first three notes. The four notes together had a period of 0.3 seconds on the spectrograms. (Audio clips)
Behavior:	The bird was flying ~100-200 feet above the ground near the location where we stopped and turned off our airboat while performing a waterbird survey along the Ogden Bay shoreline as employees (4) of the State of Utah Department of Natural Resources Division of Wildlife Resources and a post-doc researcher from Utah State University. The sandpiper was first detected by its repeated 4-note call. The bird was fluttering around in the same area and altitude for what seemed to be about two minutes then eventually flew off toward Fremont Island.
Habitat:	Hypersaline lake shoreline and a barren, extremely low-gradient mudflat with exposures of calcareous structures slightly raised above the mudflats.
Similar species and how were they eliminated:	Jonathan Lautenbach: Similar species to this bird are Whimbrel, Long-billed Curlew, Marbled Godwit, Solitary Sandpiper, yellowlegs, American Golden-Plover, Black-bellied Plover, and other shorebirds. WHIMBREL: WHIM was eliminated because the call of the bird we heard was shorter (3 4 notes) than the seven whistle and other calls of a WHIM that I have heard and it had a different quality to it than WHIM. Additionally, when we were able to see the bird, it had a short, straight bill, unlike the longer, down-curved bill of a WHIM. LONG-BILLED CURLEW: The call was different than a LBCU; upon seeing the bird, it was smaller and the short bill eliminated a LBCU. MARBLED GODWIT: The call of the bird helped eliminate MAGO as well as the smaller size and short bill. A MAGO would have a different call and a long bill. SOLITARY SANDPIPER: The bird we observed was calling and the call was distinctively different than a SOSA, additionally, the bird was much larger than a SOSA. YELLOWLEGS: The bird we saw did not have a white rump as would be expected for either yellowlegs species. AMERICAN GOLDEN-PLOVER and BLACK-BELLIED PLOVER: The call was different from that of an AMGP/BBPL that I have heard in both migration (spring and fall) and on the breeding grounds. Additionally, the bird's long legs were visible beyond the tail which is not seen in AMGP/BBPL. We saw and heard a BBPL a few minutes after we observed the UPSA to help confirm that the bird was not a BBPL. Additionally, when we observed the bird we did not see black underwings as would be expected in a BBPL. Other Shorebird Species: Other shorebird species were eliminated by the overall coloration and by the call that we heard and were able to record. The main plumage characteristic that eliminated most other shorebird species was the lack of a white wing-stripe seen on most other shorebirds. John Neill: Similar, medium-sized shorebird species that have been recorded in Utah may include black-bellied plover, American golden-plover, Pacific golden-plover, killdeer, long-billed curlew, whimbrel, Hudsonian godwit, marbled godwit, ruddy turnstone, red knot, ruff, short-billed dowitcher, long-billed dowitcher, Wilson s snipe, wandering tattler, lesser yellowlegs, willet, and greater yellowlegs. Black-bellied plover, killdeer, Hudsonian godwit, ruddy turnstone, red knot, ruff, Wilson s snipe, and willet were eliminated due to their wing stripes. The presence of very long and prominent bills in proportion to their body size eliminates long-billed curlew, whimbrel, godwits, dowitchers and Wilson s snipe. Wandering tattler, lesser yellowlegs, willet, and greater yellowlegs have a similar repetitive call to the upland sandpiper, but the ends of their call notes descend in frequency rather than a rise like upland sandpiper. The golden-plovers do not have repetitive four-note calls like upland sandpiper. Their notes tend to be much longer and variable in frequency for the duration of the note. Upland sandpiper calls are very short in duration and period.
Previous experience with this & similar species:	Jonathan Lautenbach: I have extensive experience with UPSA in Kansas and in Michigan. In Kansas I have observed hundreds, if not thousands of UPSAs migrating over the prairies in that region. If I had heard this bird in Kansas, I would not have hesitated to ID it as a UPSA and I would not have questioned it. I also have fairly extensive experience with most other shorebird species in migration in both the Great Plains (mostly Kansas, but also other areas within the Great Plains), Intermountain West (mostly in Wyoming), Michigan, and some other areas. John Neill, Kyle Stone, Carter Page, and Spencer Baxter have no previous experience with upland sandpipers, but have a combined experience of over 45 years of doing waterbird surveys around Great Salt Lake. Most common and uncommon shorebirds are observed and identified by sight and voice annually: black-necked stilt, American avocet, black-bellied plover, killdeer, snowy plover, long-billed curlew, marbled godwit, sanderling, Baird's sandpiper, least sandpiper, western sandpiper, long-billed dowitcher, Wilson s snipe, spotted sandpiper, solitary sandpiper, lesser yellowlegs, willet, greater yellowlegs, Wilson's phalarope, and red-necked phalarope. Semipalmated plover and pectoral sandpiper are observed much less often.
References consulted:	Merlin Bird ID sound recording app was used as a reference to the vocalizations. Visual cues were confirmed using a hardcopy of The Sibley Field Guide to Birds of Western North America (First Edition).
Description from:	Notes made later
Observer:	Jonathan Lautenbach, John Neill, Kyle Stone, Carter Page, and Spencer Baxter.
Observer's address:	John Neill 4790 S 7500 W Hooper, UT 84315
Observer's e-mail address:	**
Other observers who independently identified this bird:	{Jonathan Lautenbach, John Neill, Kyle Stone, Carter Page, and Spencer Baxter)
Date prepared:	Started on 9/3/2025, completed and submitted 9/11/2025
Additional material:	Two concurrent Merin Bird ID app recordings (.WAV) at full length. Two non-overlapping, shorter clips of each with spectrograms. (eBird Audio)
Additional comments:	Bird observed by five people during a Utah Division of Wildlife Resources waterbird survey conducted via airboat along the eastern shore of Ogden Bay in Great Salt Lake. We stopped the engine to count birds on the shore when we first detected the bird by voice. An incomplete eBird checklist (only waterbirds and raptors were surveyed) was submitted: https://ebird.org/checklist/S271441809