ML69832401

Age

Not specified

Sex

Not specified

Tags

Multiple species

Observation details

originally identified this bird as a Pacific golden-plover, after much indecision and consulting of bird books. a birding group led by Steve Howell got much better looks (and photos) of this bird a couple days later, and identified it as an American. their points are spot on, and in addition, in their photos the golden wash on the bird is less pronounced. when we saw the bird, the sun angle was lower and now that i notice and pay attention, everything had a golden wash to it (which i failed to realize or think about at the time). i remain perplexed about the call, which we compared to recordings in the field and the call sounded most like the Pacific golden-plover recordings in the National Geographic phone app. original field notes are below. -- juvenile golden-plover found in pasture west of cypresses by Dea Freid- she got us on the bird. the plover called as it flew towards the pond- we refound it at the pond edge and studied it for another 20 minutes. overall golden wash over most of the bird, and buffy wash to underparts. we paid careful attention to wing length, primary projection & tertials. occasionally got conflicting looks from the tertials, which appeared to end much short of tail tip (like American), however most consistently the primaries were just barely longer than the tail (like Pacific). the patterning on the tertials had bold (for golden-plover) gold triangles (Pacific). what clinched ID for us was plover's call as it flew, a whistling chu-wee with the second half higher-pitched.

Technical information

Model

iPhone 6s

Lens

iPhone 6s back camera 4.15mm f/2.2

ISO

40

Focal length

4.2 mm

Flash

Flash did not fire, auto

f-stop

f/2.2

Shutter speed

1/120 sec

Dimensions

1400 pixels x 1050 pixels

Original file size

857.64 KB