ML125934021
Contributor
Date
Location
- Age
- Not specified
- Sex
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Observation details
MEGA| Amazing experience both in terms of excitement and frustration! While birding The Creeks on the edge of Nantucket Harbor near the end of the day, I heard a call which was unfamiliar to me. It sounded somewhat reminiscent of an golden plover sp. or perhaps a distant Semipalmated Plover, a rather plaintive "twee" or "tee twee"; I mentioned to Peter Alden and Simon Perkins who were birding with me, "Plover calling?" (not being able to assign the call to any species in particular; I scanned with binoculars the mouth of the creeks which were about .2 miles away. I noticed a few Black-bellied Plovers there and so ran to get my scope which was still in the car. I got the scope set up and started scanning the plovers; I quickly settled on a bird which was walking slightly away from me; it was an all gray, medium sized shorebird; It was one of those moments where I was nearly completely disarmed by what I was seeing it was so out of context!; My mind raced on the bird. My first split second thought was of a 'Eastern' Willet, thinking I was getting fooled on size at that distance and the thick, straightish bill of the bird, overall gray plumage, white below; That did not make sense rather quickly and I started to run through and take notes on what field marks I was seeing; the legs were somewhat short (compared to the size of the body) and dingy yellow, but clearly yellow; the bill was somewhat thick and long, and straight; the upperparts of the bird were gray, including the upper chest; the bird clearly had a white eyeline; below the bird was white including the exposed flanks; The bird was feeding along the bank of a creek and mostly walking away; During this roughly 5 seconds of observation, I processed that this bird had to be a Tattler sp.; Just as I started to say something to Peter Alden and Simon Perkins (who had gone down to the edge of the marsh to look for other birds) that I thought I was looking at a Tattler, a shotgun went off in the marsh between me and the bird (duckhunters) and the shorebirds flushed including 5 Black-bellied Plovers and the tattler. I instantly noted as the bird lifted its wings to take flight that the underwings were dark gray all the way base of the wings at the top of the flanks. I could only think of a few species that would show this field mark (Solitary Sandpiper and tattlers); I started calling out directions to Simon and Peter as to where the bird was in relation to the BBPLs and they could see that there was a smaller bird (perhaps 30% or so smaller than the BBPLs it was with or that was my impression at the time); I followed the birds as they flew left towards downtown Nantucket giving directions to Simon and Peter; the flock began to turn right and I said to Simon who was closest to me that he should get a look at this bird in my scope so I led the flock and he was able to get on the bird and note some of the field marks which I had seen already as he stayed on the bird as it unfortunately disappeared to the south with a BBPL!; I had the sinking feeling that we would not see this bird again; We tried to relocate the bird near Miacomet Pond but had no luck (only finding a late Spotted Sandpiper and a large flock of Sanderling); After finishing up some field notes I called a few people about the sighting and we got the word to the groups of participants and leaders for the Nantucket Birding Festival so that we could be on the lookout for the bird in the coming days of that festival; Video here: https://vimeo.com/51826834 Audio here: http://soundcloud.com/jtrimble/grey-tailed-tattler
Technical information
- Model
- Canon EOS 7D
- ISO
- 400
- Focal length
- 400 mm
- Flash
- Flash did not fire, auto
- f-stop
- f/5.6
- Shutter speed
- 1/1600 sec
- Dimensions
- 1800 pixels x 1236 pixels
- Original file size
- 983.56 KB