Editing Dowitcher (section)

{{short description|Genus of birds}}
{{Automatic taxobox
| image = Short-billed dowitcher in JBWR (40844).jpg
| image_caption = [[Short-billed dowitcher]] (''[[Limnodromus griseus]]'')
| taxon = Limnodromus
| authority = [[Prince Maximilian of Wied-Neuwied|Wied-Neuwied]], 1833
| type_species = ''[[Short-billed dowitcher|Scolopax noveboracensis]]''<ref name=HM4>{{cite web |url= https://www.aviansystematics.org/4th-edition-checklist?viewfamilies=63 |title= Alcidae |author=<!--Not stated--> |date= |website= aviansystematics.org |publisher= The Trust for Avian Systematics |access-date= 2023-07-26}}</ref> = ''Scolopax grisea''
| type_species_authority = [[Johann Friedrich Gmelin|Gmelin. JF]], 1789
| subdivision_ranks = Species
| subdivision = See text.
}}

The three '''dowitchers ''' are medium-sized long-billed [[wader|wading]] [[bird]]s in  the [[genus]] '''''Limnodromus'''''.  The English name "dowitcher" is from [[Iroquois]], recorded in English by the 1830s.<ref name=OED>{{Cite OED |Dowitcher}} The OED's earliest example is from 1841, but full-text searching gives results that suggest it was already in common use by the mid-1830s.</ref>

They resemble [[godwit]]s in body and bill shape, and the reddish underparts in summer, but are much shorter legged, more like [[snipe]]s, to which they are more closely related.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Thomas |first1=Gavin H. |last2=Wills |first2=Matthew A. |last3=Székely |first3=Tamás |year=2004 |title=A supertree approach to shorebird phylogeny |journal=BMC Evolutionary Biology |volume=4 |page=28 |id=28 |doi=10.1186/1471-2148-4-28 |pmid=15329156 |pmc=515296 |doi-access=free}}</ref> All three are strongly [[bird migration|migratory]].

The two [[North America]]n species are difficult to separate in most plumages, and were considered a single species for many years. The [[Asia]]n bird is rare and not well known.