Nonstop flights direct from Iowa to Venezuela are rare, unless you happen to be a well-fed pectoral sandpiper. If it finds ...

Pectoral sandpipers hunt for food in the mud flats of Lake Red Rock, a flood-control reservoir about 25 miles southeast of Des Moines. Photo by ...

This shows a color-banded male pectoral sandpiper (Calidris melanotos) with inflated throat, scanning his territory. This image relates to a paper that appeared in the Aug. 9, 2012, issue of ...