We had a nice field trip to Hornsby this morning to finish up the Spring Shorebird Class!!. 12 species of shorebird, plus 2 gull and 1 tern species. Some of us also had a bonus bird near the end of the field trip.
White-rumped sandpipers are the stars of the show right now, but I also liked the finery of Least and Semipalmated, not to mention the phalarope show!!
Ok, here’s a mystery bird for the current shorebird class. (if you’re not in the class feel free to email me if you figure out the answer). I recently emailed a demonstration of how to take a stab at identifying distant shorebirds in bad photographs. Here are some really bad photographs (distant digi-scoped). But if…
a few from recent Hornsby visits.
ID bird 1?
Spent 3.5 hours at Cedar Point on Lake Buchanan this morning. 40 species total including 5 Tri-colored herons and a Bushtit. 10 species of shorebirds including 3 new ones for the fall shorebird season: Marbled Godwit, Black-bellied Plover and Greater Yellowlegs. Conditions look pretty good there for shorebirds. I had 5 flocks of peeps fly…
Here’s a couple of sightings at Hornsby that might interest some of our future repeat offenders from Shorebird Class. (Not my sightings, reported on Ebird daily). Remember a couple of our elliptical migrants we didn’t expect to see this fall? Several asked about the possibility of seeing in the fall. Although, no pix with the…
Here’s a comparison between a molting adult (right) and a 1st fall Lesser yellowlegs. Notice the immaculate patterns on the back of the left bird (juve). The adult’s alternate feathers are worn and dull in the coverts and scapulars. You can see emerging basic mantle feathers on the adult which are gray and large and…
