ML132882481

Age

Not specified

Sex

Not specified

Observation details

Given that I was driving north up the coast and not too far away, I decided to look for a Buff-breasted Sandpiper that had been seen intermittently on the flats below the dairy since it was found here on 8 September by Don Roberson. It took me a short time to find this bird amid the many shorebirds that were foraging on the flats below the bluffs on which I was standing, but once I did locate this bird, it was easily observed until it flew off and disappeared to the southeast at dusk. I therefore observed this bird for an extended period of time through my scope as it foraged quietly on the flats at a distance of 50-75 meters. Rather than forage on the open flats, this bird concentrated its time around the small herbaceous plants, around which it appeared to feed by picking at the flies. Typically this bird circled the plants picking at the foliage, but on a few occasions it even crawled into the middle of a small plant. This relatively small shorebird was somewhat smaller than nearby Killdeer, yet it seemed comparable in size and overall shape to a Pectoral Sandpiper. The bill was slim, straight, and about as long as the head was wide. The feathering extended further out along the lower mandible than it did along the upper, which resulted in a unique appearance. The head was unremarkable in its size. The steep forehead met a gently rounded crown that curved downward more strongly at the nape. The neck was slim and noticeably long when the bird was alert, yet short and stocky when relaxed as the bird was foraging. The body was plump and the long wings extended beyond the tip of the short tail. The tips of at least three primaries were evident beyond the longest tertial in a primary projection that was about three-quarters the length of the exposed tertials. The legs were long and slim. This bird was pale buff with scaly upperparts, but little in the way of a pattern on the head, neck, and underparts. The crown was buffy with black streaking, but the forehead was the same pale buff as the face, and the buff color of the lores and both the supraloral and superciliary regions contrasted sharply with the darker cap. The auriculars and the sides and back of the neck were a warm, sandy-brown color. The back of the neck at least appeared to be unmarked. The underparts were buffy and relatively uniform in appearance, but the middle of the lower belly was somewhat paler than the breast, and there was some weak streaking evident at the sides of the breast. The mantle feathers had buffy fringes on a blackish background, which produced a finely scaled if not mottled pattern. The somewhat larger scapular feathers had black centers that contrasted with buffy fringes that extended down along both edges and across the tips to create a conspicuously scaled pattern, but the paler fringes also appeared to pinch inward at the base of each feather. The wing coverts had dusky centers with buffy edges and tips that created a pattern that was both more finely and more weakly scaled than that of the scapulars. The tertials had dusky centers that contrasted with both a darker shaft and a cinnamon-buff fringe that extended along the outer edge and across the tip of each feather to produce a boldly striped pattern. The exposed primary tips were blackish, though they may have been indistinctly tipped paler. I never did see the tail when the bird was on land, and I can't say much about it based on the brief view that I had of it when the bird flew by at dusk. The bill was black, the eyes were dark, and the legs were yellow, but because the legs were soiled, the yellow was most obvious when seen from behind.

Technical information

Model

COOLPIX P5100

ISO

400

Focal length

18.6 mm

Flash

Flash did not fire, auto

f-stop

f/4.3

Shutter speed

1/60 sec

Dimensions

1670 pixels x 1353 pixels

Original file size

1.73 MB