ML118394651

Age and sex

Adult Female - X

Observation details

This bird was first found mid-day on Monday by Mark Sawyer. However, he didn't post his photo until this morning, so nobody looked for it yesterday. Today we had planned to bird the outer point, so his report made for an easy decision on where to start our afternoon. Upon arriving at the main lagoon a little after 1pm, we could see a number of shorebirds scattered on the north and southwest sides. A few dozen Semipalmated and a few Snowy Plovers (plus some peeps; total maybe 100 small shorebirds) were on the northwest shore, which is where Mark had the bird on Monday. This is a sandy area with sparse vegetation. There is only a little bit of mud along the shoreline, but most of the birds here were roosting and not actively foraging. No Common Ringed Plover was present. Fortunately, after then checking the southwest shoreline, we swung by the beach and I spotted the plover roosting with 41 Snowy Plovers and several Semipalmateds. This was directly between the lagoon and the ocean, in the dry sand, at 2:25pm. After a while, the plover moved over to the NW corner of the lagoon and roosted, then foraged, with Semipalmated Plovers. It did not vocalize. Identification: The following field marks rule out Semipalmated Plover. -Extensive white supercilium behind eye. This was obvious regardless of the bird's posture (sitting, standing, foraging, flying) or the lighting (ranging from bright sunlight to complete overcast). The same can be said about the other field marks described below. -Brown ear coverts indicate that this is a female. Female SEPL could show some white on the supercilium, but not as extensive as on this bird. -Extensive black on face, including from the ear coverts all the way to the bill, extending from the top of the bill to the gape, not tapering near the bill as in SEPL. -Thicker breastband. While this varied depending on angle, and although there were no alternate plumage SEPL to compare with, the breast band was substantially thicker than what I've ever seen on SEPL -White forehead more extensive, extending to a point below the eye -No eyering -Seemed longer bodied and thinner-billed than SEPL. The former is especially obvious in the photos, while both were also apparent in the field. It wasn't noticeably bulkier than the Semipalmated Plovers. -No toe webbing, including between the outer two toes; easily visible both in the field (standing still; hard to see while walking) and in photos (both white foot raised/walking, and white foot resting on sand).

Technical information

Model

Canon PowerShot SX20 IS

ISO

100

Focal length

100 mm

Flash

Flash did not fire, auto

f-stop

f/5.7

Shutter speed

1/320 sec

Dimensions

4000 pixels x 3000 pixels

Original file size

2.47 MB