Ferris Akel has edited and posted the best video from our live-streamed “Virtual Shorebird Walk” this past Saturday 5 September 2020. It is 1:06:38 in length, entitled “Knox-Marsellus Marsh With Dave Nutter, 9/5/2020 (HD),” and it can be found here:
https://youtu.be/V2tJiTlvabk Featured shorebirds include: Stilt Sandpiper Lesser Yellowlegs Greater Yellowlegs Semipalmated Sandpiper Least Sandpiper Pectoral Sandpiper RED-NECKED PHALAROPE Semipalmated Plover Short-billed Dowitcher Other birds shown include: Ring-billed Gull Bonaparte’s Gull Northern Shoveler Green-winged Teal Blue-winged Teal Mallard Caspian Tern Turkey Vulture Sandhill Crane Unfortunately, due to wind, much of the discussion was inaudible, so I am adding some commentary here. Weight references in grams are from the Sibley Guide to Birds, my favorite field guide. I think that overall body bulk is an easier way to compare shorebirds, whose length includes legs which are sometimes underwater, necks which are sometimes folded, and bills which may be under water or tucked among back feathers. Sibley is also handy because before each group of birds is a page showing all of the species grouped and labeled as to their Genus. I find this particularly useful to group our lanky Tringa (yellowlegs, etc) together at one extreme of shape and to group many of the compact Calidris (peeps, etc) in another extreme of shape. RING-BILLED GULL, at 520g, is the smallest of our most common gulls, but among a resting group of them we saw a gull which was much smaller, a 190g BONAPARTE’S GULL, a bit larger than a nearby resting 160g GREATER YELLOWLEGS. Bonaparte’s Gull is most often seen during migration over or upon Cayuga Lake in mid-spring and mid-autumn. In breeding plumage the entire head of the Bonaparte’s Gull would be black, but in this non-breeding plumage it only has a round blackish ear-spot behind the eye, reminding me of a flounder with both eyes on the same side of its head. The other black it shows is on the wingtips when they are folded at rest, but unlike other gulls, such as Ring-billed and Herring, whose wings in flight also show big black tips, Bonaparte’s instead has a narrow black stripe along the trailing edge of the wing, and the ends of the primary feathers line up and overlap just right to make the wingtip look black at rest. The dark band across the folded wing indicates that this is an immature, rather than an adult, and in flight this would show as a diagonal dark stripe atop the inner wing. This bird also shows a bit of tan on the hind-neck remaining from the juvenile plumage. The bill of Bonaparte’s Gull is black and much more slender than the bills of larger gulls. Among gulls, the relative thickness of the bill is a good clue as to the bird’s size. The legs were pale pink, but this did not show in the video. Ferris noticed something while recording which I did not see at the time: the Bonaparte’s Gull was moving its feet while pecking at the water a bit, appearing to stir up the bottom and feed on small items in the water. Bonaparte’s is a small gull with buoyant flight, and it is similar to Black Terns in the way it will pick small items from the water surface or catch insects in flight. A 58g STILT SANDPIPER walked past the gulls while feeding with typical straight-down probing motions, and it was briefly in view at the same time as the 160g GREATER YELLOWLEGS and an 80g LESSER YELLOWLEGS. We then concentrated on a shorebird with a typical CALIDRIS genus shape: short legs, short neck, a bill about the length of the head (straight on this bird), a compact body whose wingtips and undertail coverts met relatively bluntly at the tail tip (no “wing extension” of wingtips far beyond the tail such as we saw a couple weeks ago on a Baird’s Sandpiper). The size was much smaller than a nearby LESSER YELLOWLEGS, making our study bird a classic “PEEP”. This bird was very pale and more grayish than brownish in tone with only a slight buffy wash on the head, indicating it to be a SEMIPALMATED SANDPIPER, and we saw many of this species, who, with partially webbed feet, are comfortable in shallow water. LEAST SANDPIPER, our other common, very small, and compact Calidris, would be darker brown above, with a brownish wash over the head, neck, and breast, and it prefers mud. Later we had a brief look at a Least Sandpiper. With the Semipalmated Sandpipers we saw a few PECTORAL SANDPIPERS, also typical CALIDRIS shape - compact body, short legs, fairly short neck, bill about the length of the head. But we could see that the Pectorals differed from Semipalmated Sandpipers in several respects: Pectorals are considerably larger; they are brown above; they have “braces” or pale stripes down the back; their neck and breast is washed gray-brown in a deep and well-defined convex shield (diagnostic); Pectoral shows a bit more neck; Pectoral’s head looks a bit smaller on the body, as is typical with larger birds; and the bill has a definite downward curve. In the absence of a direct size comparison, the shape clues of the smaller head, more definite neck, and more curved bill help distinguish Pectoral from the smaller but similarly-colored and -patterned Least Sandpiper (whose bill curvature is very slight, yet useful to distinguish from the straighter-billed Semipalmated). Among ducks, we saw two NORTHERN SHOVELERS, with a long, low profile and a distinctively long bill which flares out widely toward the tip. The FEMALE had a plain gray-brown face and uniform scaly tan sides, while the ECLIPSE MALE had darker speckles on the forward part of the face near the eye and bill (a hint of the breeding plumage green head) and darker brown feathers on the side (a hint of the breeding plumage chestnut patch across the belly and up both sides. They were briefly next to a GREEN-WINGED TEAL (a smaller compact duck with a distinct pale narrow horizontal triangle on the side of the tail) a MALLARD (larger, longer neck, silver on wing feathers atop back), and later a BLUE-WINGED TEAL (small duck with face paler toward the bill). A real highlight was watching two RED-NECKED PHALAROPES, in typical constant motion. As the phalaropes swam (or seamlessly transitioned to wading or walking when they briefly encountered shallows or narrow strips of mud) their heads pumped forward like a walking pigeon or a swimming American Coot. Phalarope toes are lobed somewhat like those of coots, allowing them to be the most aquatic of shorebird, even being found far out at sea during migration. Again in typical phalarope fashion, our birds frequently used their straight thin bills to rapidly pluck minuscule food items on the water’s surface in various directions. (We did not see any “spinning” when a floating phalarope combines rapid rotation with feeding. The turning pushes surface water away in all directions, creating an upwelling to bring tiny edible items to the surface, which the phalarope jabs out in all directions to pluck with its forceps bill while continuing to rotate. I guess surface food was already plentiful enough.) Their typical phalarope swimming posture was riding low in the water but with their necks extended up. They were larger than Semipalmated Sandpipers but smaller than Lesser Yellowlegs. These JUVENILE Red-necked Phalaropes were bright white except for a narrow black crown becoming an even narrower line down the nape, a black almost-horizontal mark on the cheek, and blackish back and wings with bold tan braces. We see breeding plumage Red-necked Phalaropes rarely in spring. Among a flock of mostly SEMIPALMATED SANDPIPERS, see if you can pick out the SEMIPALMATED PLOVER which first caught Ferris’ attention. It is slightly larger than the sandpipers, and looks somewhat like a Killdeer with a plain tan back, and black, white, and tan bars across the breast, neck and head. But the Semipalmated Plover appears more CUTE than either a Killdeer or the sandpipers. That’s our human reaction to a bird with characteristics like a human infant: a big round head, a small bill(nose), no neck, a compact body, and short legs, and those traits are useful field marks, so it’s good to think about birds which trigger our “that’s so cute” response. The “SEMI-” in this plover’s name also reminds me that, although it has a very similar color and pattern to our most familiar plover, the Semipalmated Plover is by comparison the “half-Killdeer” - it’s about half the bulk at 45g v 95g; it has only one dark bar across the breast instead of two; its bill is only a quarter the length of the head instead of half; the tail is short instead of long; it shows no neck while Killdeer shows some; it is certainly less loud-mouthed than Charadrius vociferus; and it is less flashy, lacking the orange rump. Ferris also aptly compared the posture and behavior of the Semipalmated Plovers to the Black-bellied Plovers we saw last week: both stand with body horizontal and head horizontal, walk a few steps, then perhaps peck at the ground, and repeat. Black-bellied Plover, like Killdeer, being a larger bird, has a smaller head relative to body size, and it has more neck (held vertically), and also a larger bill (although still less than the head length), but for all of them the plover behavior stands (so to speak). The Calidris genus Least and Semipalmated Sandpipers which are smaller but close to the size of the Semipalmated Plover behave differently and tend to face downward while walking more constantly. We watched a feeding DOWITCHER, whose bill, unlike Stilt Sandpiper, is straight and even longer, probing downward in deep water. For the Dowitcher, the bill’s propulsion is mainly from the neck while the body remains fairly steady and level, whereas the Stilt Sandpiper’s body tend to tip down in front and up in the rear as it sends its bill straight down. The Dowitcher’s body is also thicker than a Stilt Sandpiper’s. And at this time of year Stilt Sandpiper is gray above, but this Dowitcher is brown, which in fall indicates a JUVENILE. This juvenile Dowitcher is a warm brown on the patterned back which is scaled in paler feather edgings, and it is an especially warm tan on the breast, both of which identify it as a SHORT-BILLED DOWITCHER. Discernible in the video if you look closely, is one diagnostic field mark which clinches the ID of SHORT-BILLED DOWITCHER on this juvenile bird: The tertials - the longest wing feathers which extend over the tail (and sometimes flutter in this strong breeze) - are barred orange and black. On a juvenile Long-billed Dowitcher the tertials would be solid gray with pale edgings. Long-billed Dowitcher would have a colder brown on the back with some orangish feather edgings, and a colder grayer color on the breast. Long-billed Dowitcher also has a thicker body, showing a deeper belly. Long-billed Dowitcher often shows a more pronounced hump on the back with hackles raised as it feeds, although I have seen this in Short-billed as well. It wasn’t until after we climbed back up to the overlook that we finally saw the family of SANDHILL CRANES walking on the drier central part of the marsh. To our delight they took flight together - the first time we had seen the youngster airborne - and they flew together up to the recently cut hayfield alongside East Road, for a wonderful closing view. - - Dave Nutter -- Cayugabirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsWELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsRULES http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/cayugabirds-l@cornell.edu/maillist.html 2) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/Cayugabirds 3) http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/CAYU.html Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --