While we wait for the ducks to decide to migrate...

S

Steve Sutton

Well-known member
how about a little shorebird action.....

PEEPS.......you tell me what kind.....

mopeeps.jpg


lets have some fun and count em.....

countem.jpg


1-2-3---ummmm wait....1-2-3-4-----dammit

1-2-3-nowait.jpg


o.k. start over---1-2-3-4-5----no--missed that one in the middle

1-2-3-4-noooowait.jpg


would you PLEASE quit moving---1-2-3-4-5-7-100-crapppppp

1-2-3-4-5-6-daaammmmmitttt.jpg


WHOA....somebodies coming...HEAD FOR THE DECK

headforthedeck.jpg


ONE is the lonliest number that you'll ever BE.......

mybad-1.jpg


talk about being in the wrong place at the wrong time....what were the odds that this guy would get "picked"....

mybad-2.jpg


threat level reduced...return to base...

1-2-3-4-5--ahhhcrap.jpg


abort landing...the landing pattern IS FULL....

thelandingpatternISFULL.jpg


Final count.....a BAJILLION TWO HUNDRED TIRTY THREE MINUS ONE.....
 
That is enough to make my sinus headache worse.....as far as the poor birdy soul that was eaten.....RIP

Now we just need a lecture on behavioral adaptations to predation and evolutionary theory.......

BAARF!!

Matt
 
One of the sandpipers

maybe a pectoral

I don't think it is a:

Willet
Yellow Leg
Whimbrel
Curlew
Godwit
Turnstone
Dunlin
Dowitcher
 
[font=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica]
Final count.....a BAJILLION TWO HUNDRED TIRTY THREE MINUS ONE.....
Click to expand...


Are you sure you don't work for the government? I think you inflated the numbers here as well :>) :>) not that my guess would be any closer.
[/font]
 
as in

"which" Yellowlegs--which tehy aren't

"which" Godwit--which they are not

"which" Curlew--which they are not

"which" Turnstone--which they are not

"which" Dowitcher--which they are not

Willet....nope...think the beach for those guys

You could be right that there is a Pectoral somewhere in the masses.....

You're "Dunlin" guess was the closest as they would be one of the one that you most often see in groups this size practicing "synchronized flight"....(oh wait thats a "behavioural adaptation to predation" and those make you barf....

There was a clue in the first note....."PEEPS".....

Might I suggest that you not Snipe hunt?

Steve

DUnlin....
 
"Peep" are the smaller sandpipers in the genus Calidris. In North America these include the regular Western, Semipalmated, and Least Sandpipers, as well as occasional vagrants such as Red-necked, Temmink's, Long-toed, and Little Stints.

The peeps, common slang for the five smallest North American sandpipers, tend to create more identification headaches than the rest of the shorebirds put together.

Steve don't take me to serious on some things.. sat though one to many lectures.

Matt
 
you left out the pink and yellow marshmellow variety.....

HAving "watched" birds for as long as I've "hunted" them I'd disagree that "peeps" cause more problems than all the rest but that tends to be a "personal" thing....

I'm guessing Mr. Tim J. will weigh in with the correct species name....then we can move on to what Raptor it was.....

For the record I take "little" in life seriously.....except for having fun.....so no worries....I haven't taken anything you've said yet "seriously"......

Steve
 
My guess would be westerns and the falcon as a peregrine (merlin was my first thought, but relative to the size of a western, morelikely a perigrine)..

Clint
 
Last edited:
That comment was for the average person.....I took both field and regular ornithology 25 years ago.....think I forgot more then I learned..HAHAHAHA!!

I do a bird watching at times but nothing to serious.........leave the field guide at home just take the glasses and relax.....

The Great Salt Lake marshes do get a good assortment, and numbers of shorebirds.

But the Easter bunny marshmallow birdies.........what basket are those in??
 
Last edited:
so did I.....standing on the edge of a flooded potato field watching two seperate flocks of Westerns joining and up and seperating the first time I knew about the Falcon was from the sound of its stoop and the way the flock "split" as he passed through.....wasn't till after he got out from behind the big flock that I could really get a look at him....

I'm "thinking" the bird in his talons is a Spoonbilled Sandpiper....hey....it could happen....

Steve
 
Probably was a spoonbill, and you have the photos!

Speaking of spoonbills, things aren't looking too well for them. They';re been changed to endnagered, and the Yellow Sea project isn't going to help for sure!

Clint
 
as "endangered" and that there might be "as few as 1,000 pairs left"......other than that I know little about them although I was lucky enough to see the one that was in Vancouver B.C. in 1978....

Always sad to think that a small, insignificant species, (from a consumption point), can decline to the point where they are in danger of extinction....one of those things that many shrug and say "so what" becasue they don't realize that the reason for the decline is the loss of inter-tidal areas that not only nourish this little insignificant bird but also the fisheries, and there the human populations, of the World......

Steve
 
Steve,
I am pretty sure those are snipe, I have shot several that looked just like that.... just joking.
My intitial guess was sanderlings, but the bills seem a little too long. What ever they are, great pictures!

Paul J
 
The only time I have ever seen that many birds out here they were cormorants and I am still trying to get an answer on the cullinary prep for those before I take one.



Do you get out to Idaho at all in the late summer?
 
gustatory delights of Cormorants....as I recall they did some "collecting" on Crawfish ponds in La. and he ate a couple of them......memory serves those were Neo-Tropical Cormorants and not the Double Crested Cormorants that you would be seeing where you are....as I recall he reported that while it wasn't Kobe Beef it was certainly palatable....

That many Cormorants would be a butt load of Cormorants.....

Steve
 
In the mid fall we see migratory flocks that to me seem to be what the old "Dark skies" of geese or ducks must have been, on the fishing grounds, esp. montauk and block island. They are high flying and not hanging around.

I did tuna fish in an offshore raft of seabirds that thick but other than sheer waters? I couldnt tell you what it was made up of. A long stretch of mild wind in the late summer had formed a weed line on the edge of two temperature curves of sea water. The quantity of life in the air and in the water was humbling to anyone who was there to see it. Three days and a big wind blew it all apart.

Two years ago a huge school of herring got into the end of Fishers Island sound where the giant tuna used to ball them up in the 50's on a small reef and the gannets were bombing the fish all afternoon in 25 knot wind. Had to observe from afar with the telescope but the splash of the dive bombing could be seen over two miles away. Never seen a gannet before or after.

My wife's cousin is in charge of banding on a Mtn top in Idaho outside of Boise and he gets some very cool stuff in the nets, both song bird and raptors.

Ill get you a link.
 
conditions like you describe can have four ofr five of the common Shearwater species, several of the pelagic gulls and terns and a couple of storm petrels in attendance.....then trhow in the stragglers that you get from the real ocean wanderers....I love to fish offshore and the pelagic birds add a great deal to that for me......its not the "desert" so many think it is.....

Definately send the link I'd like to see it......

Steve
 
Here it is,

My brother in law visited With the team in late Aug last year and he and my niece had the trip of a lifetime.

Idaho Bird Observatory

Jay has been doing work in song birds and raptors since I have known him. He is on a hot bed of activity there for sure.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top