Willcox Waders: The Juveniles Arrive

After yesterday morning’s visit to Whitewater, we headed north by way of the Sulphur Springs to Willcox, hoping for a better shorebird selection: Whitewater had produced only Killdeer and a gang of four Solitary Sandpipers.

Smelly Lake Cochise wasn’t very much better, though as the image above shows, there were a few birds, mostly American Avocets and Wilson’s Phalaropes. Small numbers of Western and Least Sandpipers fed along the few muddy edges left by the past weeks’ heavy raings; all were bright, crisp juveniles, freshly arrived on their long solitary journey from the north.

And a new species for the autumn joined the bunch.

A dozen or so Red-necked Phalaropes had arrived, bobbing and spinning among their larger, more slender cousins. We saw only one adult, all the others still in juvenile plumage or, like this one, molting into their first-basic dress for winter.

This species is rare inland over most of the east and midwest, but is a fairly common fall migrant through the mountain west; we should have a couple of weeks now to enjoy them before they head out to the open waters of the Pacific for the winter.