Contributor
Date
Location
- Age and sex
- Juvenile, Unknown sex - X
Media notes
This provides a handsome side-on image of this bird, and it, due to the angle of regard, is the best among these photos in disclosing the true, unusual shape of the bill, specifically the striking downward kink about 7/8ths of the way out to the bill's tip. To me this is distinctively different than what is seen in Dunlin, which lacks such a sharp curve (and the curve often begins farther back on the bill). Also, the shape of this bill tip seems to differ from that of Dunlin. Many other features, of course, also differ! The long bill with a distinctively kinked tip is one of the standout distinctive characteristics of this species. This photo, like ML30838311, shows the broad, very dark, loral line that is found in this species.
Observation details
The distance from our location on the trail around West Pond (near Bench #12) to the Broad-billed Sandpiper's foraging area was approximately 125 feet, as a very rough estimate. For visual study of this bird my wife and I shared a Nikon Fieldscope ED78 with 30x eyepiece (used for both observation and photography; re. latter, see below) and we each had Zeiss 7x42 binoculars. To provide documentation of this stellar rarity I took many photos of the bird using a hand-held SLR camera to shoot through a scope. I am providing herewith a total of 6 images obtained via digiscoping. Five of those images are different shots of the bird, but the sixth is a high-cropped version of the photo that originally shows the Broad-billed Sandpiper in the same frame as two Semipalmated Sandpipers, but that, as cropped in this instance, shows it alone. This cropped version may provide a better view of the details of this rare sandpiper, in particular, of its dramatically marked dark crown with a bright split supercilium. I took these photos (and others not enclosed) by using a 35mm SLR camera (Canon EOS Elan II E with attached Canon Lens EF, 50mm, 1:1.8 II lens set at infinity) to photograph through the eyepiece of a Nikon Fieldscope ED78 with 30x eyepiece. Exposure was automatic (with some center-field weighting), and the film used was Kodak Gold MAX 400 film (for color prints). The attached photos plus a few others were included in my report on this bird to the New York State Avian Records committe (NYSARC), and three of those photos were included in the NYSARC 1998 annual report concerning the acceptance of this species. That source may be consulted for a brief summary of the presence of this rarity at Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge (JBWR).
Technical information
- Dimensions
- 378 pixels x 227 pixels
- Original file size
- 65.33 KB