ML96434861

Age and sex

Adult Female - X

Media notes

Female at quite a distance, but showing the bright orange-yellow legs and raised scapulars.

Observation details

Found by Debbie House in T 18 S on the border with T 18 N. We received a call about 10 AM from Debbie and she said she thought she had a female Ruff. We were quite close by and by 10:10 we were standing next to her with scopes looking at her bird. Indeed, she was correct. It was a large shorebird with long bright yellow-orange legs. It had a dark head and back and large dark black splotches on its flanks. The dark on the head descended down the front of the neck and into the breast. The lower part of the breast was a narrow whitish vertical line with dark blotches here and there. When it turned around and bent over we could see white extending between the legs and through the vent out to the undertail coverts. In flight, the tail appeared white-based and broadly dark-tipped. The white base to the tail was interrupted by a narrow section of dark feathers in the center of the tail. One very obvious feature was scapulars poking up above the back like short bunny rabbit ears on its back whenever it bent over. This was very obvious. When upright it still had a slight bump on the back like Quasimodo. In comparison to the greater yellowlegs nearby, its bill was black, slightly decurved, and shorter. All in all quite a stunning sight, although it was at some distance mostly feeding in muddy shallow water at the tip of islands. The views were good through the scope because the sun was behind us. Heat haze was not a problem at this time of day. Photos obtained but they are from far away and blurry. We hope Debbie House got better photos than ours with her SLR.

Technical information

Model

DSC-HX400V

Lens

4.3-215mm f/2.8-6.3

ISO

80

Focal length

215 mm

Flash

Flash did not fire, auto

f-stop

f/6.3

Shutter speed

1/640 sec

Dimensions

2951 pixels x 2113 pixels

Original file size

330.32 KB