ML126438451

Age

Not specified

Sex

Not specified

Tags

Multiple species

Observation details

As far as I know, the bird never called during my visit. This Common Ringed Plover was an adult male that stood out among several other Semipalmated Plovers that were usually nearby. That is in part due to no adult male SEPL was nearby, at least when I was viewing the bird. That said, however, I think it would still be relatively easy to pick out as it had a very thick black breast band that seemed outside the range of SEPL. This ring extended around the head and as the bird foraged, the thickness of the ring on upperparts also seem to exceed what would be present on a SEPL (see my photos). Other marks of interest included the white posterior eye line that had an upward extension at its terminus – it certainly seemed more pronounced than would be so on SEPL, but I’m less sure of this. The black of face clearly met gape of bill which is lower than on most, if not all SEPL (I’ve looked at this mark in previous years, but thought there was some variance in adult SEPL…). The bill looked a bit longer than the SEPL, but this was less apparent than the overall size difference between this CRPL than the SEPL that were present. The CRPL was bigger and seemed to have a more substantial jizz. I worked on getting photos of toes – specifically the lack of webbing between inner and middle toes – but my photos don’t show this conclusively. I wish I had heard the bird call.

Technical information

Model

Canon PowerShot ELPH 500 HS

ISO

800

Focal length

18.8 mm

Flash

Flash did not fire, auto

f-stop

f/5.8

Shutter speed

1/1000 sec

Dimensions

1359 pixels x 1021 pixels

Original file size

386.24 KB