Shorebirds: Quality, Not Quantity

Shorebirders are never satisfied: one day the water’s too low, the next day it’s too high. This morning was definitely one of the latter days, with the past couple of days of rain raising water levels at Avra Valley to a point that nothing but Black-necked Stilts could use most of the pools.

In fact, even counting the stilts and the Killdeer and the thirty or so Least Sandpipers cringing on  the edges, there weren’t a hundred shorebirds out there this morning. But among them were a couple of minor prizes: an adult Stilt Sandpiper (a species that will be more and more common over the next weeks) and two adult hendersoni Short-billed Dowitchers, scarce birds in Arizona and usually detected only as juveniles.

The best time of year!