Archive for August, 2009
New Broad-billed Sandpiper Photo
Posted by: | CommentsScott Schuette has passed on this spectacular photo of the St. Paul Broad-billed Sandpiper, still present and showing beautifully this morning.
Broad-billed Sandpiper, St. Paul Island--courtesy Scott Schuette.
Tit Quiz: The Answer
Posted by: | CommentsJochen was right–or at least he reached the same conclusion I had, which if you think about it is the same thing given that I set the quiz….
The obvious sequential molt of the tail feathers makes this Great Tit an adult, and the narrow, jaggedly broken stripe on the underparts is that of a female.
This time of year you can age North American chickadees and titmice this way, too, but I don’t know of any way to distinguish the sexes in the field–average differences in the size and shape of the cap and bib in Black-capped Chickadee, for example, are apparently obscured by individual variation.
MEGA: Broad-billed Sandpiper in Alaska
Posted by: | CommentsScott Schuette photographed a Broad-billed Sandpiper at Antone Slough on St. Paul Island yesterday evening.
Photo courtesy of Scott Schuette (way to go, Scott!)
There are only about half a dozen records of the species ever for the ABA Area–and it’s such a beautiful bird that even if it were common it would still be a definite mega.
Monsoon Wanderer
Posted by: | Comments
Our back deck is made of 2×6’s. That makes this spider… yikes!
Birding the British Bird Fair II
Posted by: | CommentsThe major birding attraction at Rutland Water is, well, the water. A little bit of it is visible from the ponderously named Anglian Water Bird Watching Center, where windows look out over a shallow backwater. I spent a couple of minutes there every day of this year’s Bird Fair, scanning the edges for whatever might be out there.
What was out there included a big flock of Northern Lapwings–some of them visible and even identifiable in the photo above–and numbers of Common Teal and Mallards. A Gray Heron, a bright and contrasty adult, was joined by as many as six Little Egrets at a time, a goodly number even for this dramatically increasing species.
Without a scope and time, it was obvious that there was a lot out there I was missing, but patience and repeated visits turned up a dozen or so Ruffs and a Black-tailed Godwit. A Eurasian Wigeon swam through, too, and Barn Swallows and House Martins skimmed the surface of the water picking up the insects that, mercifully, left us Bird Fair visitors in peace all weekend.
