ML478026191

Age

Not specified

Sex

Not specified

Observation details

This dowitcher was reported not even an hour earlier by cc, so thank you once again!!! This is a large, stocky, long-billed and short-necked sandpiper with mottled red-brown upper parts, long dark yellow legs. A few features distinguished it from the closely related LBDO. First, It had dark spots on the side of the breast as opposed to dark bars as seen in the pictures, which is a diagnostic feature separating it from the LBDO according to Sibley's guide. Second, its tertials were dark with contrasting rufous edges and bars as opposed to simply grayish with narrow rusty edges as in the LBDO. Third the call was clearly a SBDO call. To verify it, I waited patiently for the bird to vocalize (without a playback not to disturb it). It finally vocalized right after taking flight (it flew a short distance) and then emitted calls while walking on the cement. In the recording attached, you can find the calls at the very beginning (not very audible) and at seconds 28 (clearly audible) and at 1:34 (clearly audible as well) and the longer "tlutututu!" at 1:53

Technical information

Model

NIKON D7500

ISO

100

Focal length

500 mm

Flash

Flash did not fire

f-stop

f/5.6

Shutter speed

1/320 sec

Dimensions

2858 pixels x 2615 pixels

Original file size

827.45 KB