Shorebirds are so-named because they typically feed along shores of rivers, lakes, or oceans. Shallow water tends to be teeming with small animals (such as insects, crustaceans, and juvenile fish) that make up the diets of shorebirds. Estuaries (shallow areas where rivers meet the ocean) are particularly rich in prey, but shorebirds may even find habitat in the shallow waters of a flooded agricultural field or seasonal pool of water. Shorebirds are adapted to take advantage of shallow-water food resources wherever they occur. But, shallow water habitats tend to be unstable, vulnerable to drying out, draining, or freezing. With long, tapered wings and light bodies, most shorebirds are excellent flyers, able to travel to other feeding areas when necessary. Shorebirds include some champion migrators, such as terns and plovers that travel many thousands of miles each year between breeding and overwintering areas

All modern birds have bills and no teeth. The shape of a bird's bill says a lot about what it eats, for example whether it specializes in seeds (stout , cracking bill), fish (pointy, spearing bill), or plants (wide, serrated bill). Birds swallow their food without chewing, so it travels to the stomach whole or in large pieces. Bird digestive tracts have some special features for digesting chunky food. A pouch in their throat (the crop), is used to store food to be digested later, or regurgitated to feed the young. An extra, muscular stomach (the gizzard) grinds food up. Birds are endotherms, using heat they make internally to keep warm. While a few species allow their body temperature to drop at night (torpor), a nearly constant body temperature is maintained by most birds most of the time. Continuously making heat requires fuel to burn, in the form of food. So, birds spend a lot of time eating.