ML423455891
Contributor
Date
Location
- Age
- Not specified
- Sex
- Not specified
Media notes
Continuing Pectoral Sandpiper, initially reported the previous afternoon by Gary McLarty, herr photographed by Curtis A. Marantz on 6 March 2022 at the San Jacinto Wildlife Area, Riverside County, California.
Observation details
Following a report of this bird from the previous afternoon by Gary McLarty, I decided to make an afternoon trip out to the reserve to see if it was still present. It took me only a few minutes to locate this bird foraging along the edge of shallow pond along the loop road just beyond the S-curve. After taking a few photos from inside the vehicle while the bird foraged along the near shoreline, it flew across to open water to a peninsula in the middle of the pond. I then walked out on the peninsula and took more photos and studied the bird carefully as it moved along the shoreline of this peninsula out to the tip, where it remained until I departed the site. My views were good, with the afternoon sun at my back, and I should have obtained some good photos. When this bird flew, it gave a sort call that was not the typical “churrik” that I associate with this species, yet nothing about the bird’s structure or plumage suggested that it was anything other than a Pectoral Sandpiper. This was a relatively small sandpiper that was nevertheless quite a bit larger than two Least Sandpipers that were in the same area, yet it appeared to be slightly smaller than a nearby Killdeer. Overall, this was a large, “peep-like” sandpiper with a medium-length bill, a small head, a medium-length neck and legs, and a plump body that tapered to finely attenuated rear end. The bill appeared to be only slightly longer than the head was wide and it tapered from a base of medium depth to a blunt tip along a culmen that was straight for about the basal three-quarters of its length before drooping slightly near the tip. The forehead was relatively steep, and the crown was gently rounded, but with the junctions of the crown with both the forehead and nape more strongly rounded, all on a head that was small relative to the bird’s size. The neck was generally held retracted when the bird was foraging or standing quietly, but when alert it raised its head exposing a neck of medium length that tapered from a stout base to a slim junction with the head. The body was plump, full-chested, and with a posture that was closer to horizontal than diagonal when the bird was relaxed but more like diagonal when it was alert. The wings were relatively long, yet the projection of the primary tips beyond the tertials was relatively short, and the wingtips appeared to fall just short of a tail that was not quite as long as the body without the head and neck despite being mostly covered by the closed wings. I saw the spread wings only briefly when this bird made a single, short flight, but I thought at this time that the tail was relatively short and either square-tipped or weakly wedge-shaped. The legs were of medium length and unremarkable mass for a relatively large Calidris. This was a well-marked bird with plumage patterns that were duller than what one would expect of a juvenile during the fall. The forehead appeared to be dark, but I was not completely sure that the dark forehead continued down to meet the base of the bill. I am nevertheless confident that most of the forehead and the entire crown back to its junction with the nape were a relatively dark brown with fine streaking that was even darker, though more likely sooty-brown than black. Demarcating the dark cap was a whitish supercilium that was slim but well defined as it extended from the base of the upper mandible back through the supraloral region, over the eye, and back along the upper edge of the auriculars to their rear terminus. Complementing the supercilium, and similar in coloration, was a narrow eyering that appeared to be round and complete. Demarcating the portion of the supercilium before the eye was a relatively narrow eyeline that was dusky in color and relatively well-defined. Finally, the lower part of the face, including the moustachial region and maybe the submoustachial region were light grayish with fine streaking, and thus contrasting with a throat that was more purely white and unmarked. Although the supercilium appeared to end near the upper, rear corner of the auriculars, a diffuse band of paler coloration curved around onto the sides of the neck behind the auriculars to demarcate relatively conspicuously a medium-brown auricular-patch. The back of the neck did not appear to be quite as dark as the crown, but there was a narrow and rather diffuse band of darker coloration extending down the center of the neck from the nape to the upper back. The mantle and scapulars had sooty centers that contrasted with conspicuous fringes of that appeared to be a cold, grayish-brown color to produce a conspicuous pattern of scaling, but largely without warm tones. This said, some of the larger scapulars the centers combined a sooty wedge along the shaft that was bordered on either side by a cold-brown color and then encircled by a broad and relatively well-defined fringe that on some feathers had a subtle rufous cast on the inner edge but a grayish color to the tip and outer web. The upperwing coverts that I was able to see in the closed wing appeared to have dark brown centers that contrasted with well-defined fringes of the same color that characterized those on the scapulars to produce a scaly pattern, and on some feathers a black shaft-streak that is evident in my photos. I noted a row of large, rectangular feathers on the bird’s left wing that had sooty centers that contrasted with narrow fringes of sandy-brown to light gray to produce a row of long rectangles, but my impression was that these feathers were secondaries and not greater coverts, which may have been missing. The tertials had sooty centers that contrasted with narrow but well-defined fringed that ranged from grayish-brown to a warmer brown in color, and the exposed primary tips appeared to be dull black with very narrow fringes that allowed me to distinguish the tips of about three feathers extending beyond the longest tertial. My views of the rump and tail were not very good, but I thought both were mostly if not entirely dark, albeit with whitish sides to the rump seen when the bird took flight. Whereas the upperparts were a cold brownish in color and with a boldly scaled pattern, the underparts contrasted am unmarked, white throat and belly with a broad region of finely streaking across the breast and sides. The streaks were narrow, well-defined, and sooty in color, but they were found on a background that appeared to be whitish rather than brown or cinnamon. The throat appeared to be unmarked, and the lower edge of the streaking ended abruptly with the demarcation extending right across the junction of the lower breast and the upper belly, but also seemingly with the streaking continuing just barely onto the foreflanks. Below the streaked region on the breast and sides, the belly, flanks, and undertail coverts were white and unmarked. I was unable to see the underside of the tail, which was obscured by the long undertail coverts. The bill was a dull, bronzy-yellow across the basal two-thirds or so before blending to blackish distally, the eyes were sufficiently dark as to appear black in the field, and the legs were a relatively bright yellow with an olive cast and thus lacking the subtle orange tones that characterized the base of the bill.
Technical information
- Model
- Canon EOS 7D Mark II
- Lens
- EF100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM
- ISO
- 320
- Focal length
- 400 mm
- Flash
- Flash did not fire
- f-stop
- f/8.0
- Shutter speed
- 1/1600 sec
- Dimensions
- 2924 pixels x 1870 pixels
- Original file size
- 6.98 MB