As we enter the last week of July, I’m looking forward to
August and hoping some stray stints or odd shorebirds get blown in. But before you accuse me of being
ungrateful, I AM happy the LESSER SAND-PLOVER is still present. Here are some more recent photos of it:
At this point in the season we get to search through juvenile shorebirds including the local breeders. If you flip open your trusty bird book and look at juvenile
LEAST SANDPIPER, you’ll notice it can look quite similar to LONG-TOED
STINT. Yesterday was the first, bright juvenile LEAST SANDPIPER I’ve seen; time to start being more
careful! Of course, you can still
see odd feathering, some remnant down, on the back of the head which is an
obvious clue:
Another species we're seeing plenty of juveniles of is RED-NECKED PHALAROPE. They’re
quite distinct with bright orange braces on an otherwise dark mantle:
Speaking of youngsters, this bleached-out photo shows a
young NORTHERN FULMAR next to a preening parent:
Much less angelic is this gull up at
the Webster Seawatch. Best I can
tell, it’s a 1st-summer going into 2nd-winter AMERICAN (smithsonianus) HERRING GULL:
