In very dirty weather, particularly if a gale is blowing, stilt sandpipers have been noted hunting for food high and dry on rough pasture. This is probably an exceptional performance correlated with this type of weather, for it has never been observed at other times.
Just how this species makes use of its somewhat peculiar bill is not very clear. I have seen it alighted on flooded dead marsh, wading in the puddles and picking at the projecting dead stubble about on its own level. Again I find in my journal reference to three birds which alighted in water to their thighs, and immediately began to feed, moving about close together, immersing the bill to the eyes for an instant or two.
Verdi Burtch (1925), referring to a bird he saw at Branchport, N.Y., says:
I saw it catch and with much effort swallow a small frog, after which it lost all interest in fishing. It walked off a few steps and stood on one foot, all humped up and with eyes closed; quite a contrast to the usual alert sandpiper pose.
The flight of these sandpipers is rapid and regular. They move compactly, and often when about to alight, or after being disturbed, incline their bodies to either side, showing alternately the upper and lower parts. On foot they move more like curlews than tringas, they being as it were more sedate in their deportment. At times, on the approach of a person, they squat on the ground, very much in the manner of the Esquimaux curlew, _Numenius borealis_; and their flesh is as delicate as that of the species just named.
Dr. Arthur A. Allen (1913), after referring to the companionship and resemblance between stilt sandpipers and lesser yellow-legs, says:
In their habits, however, the two species were quite different. The yellow-legs were always rangy birds and covered a great deal of ground while feeding. Even when resting they were conspicuous by the nervous jerking of the head and neck. In flight they usually formed fairly compact flocks but scattered upon alighting. The stilt sandpipers, on the other hand, were quiet birds and went about their search for food very systematically, gleaning everything in their way. They frequently fed in a space a few yards square for over an hour at a time. When at rest they showed none of the nervous traits of the yellow-legs, being much more sedate, neither jerking the head nor tilting the tail. In flight they were quite similar to the yellow-legs, but as soon as they alighted they bunched and frequently the whole flock fed with their bodies nearly touching. Like the yellow-legs, the stilt sandpipers were seldom seen upon the exposed mud but preferred wading where the water was from 1 to 3 inches in depth, so that the entire head and neck frequently disappeared beneath the surface of the water while feeding. The notes of the two birds, though similar in form, were wholly unlike in quality, that of the stilt sandpiper being mellower and lower in pitch.