Least Sandpipers really are the littlest shorebirds, the least of the shorebird family.  This one is a juvenile, this year’s fledgling, born on the high Arctic tundra, left by its parents to fend for itself amidst the bloom of summer’s thick insect hatch.  Then it self-starts a migratory journey to winter in the southern states or beyond, as far as mid-way down the South American continent.  They are six inches long.

When the adults pass through earlier than this, they are typically worn, drab and colored a smudgy brown.   Some say they look like they have been dipped in tea, a denser brown than other peeps.  The youngsters, like the one pictured below, have crisp fresh plumage, all the feathers sharp, well defined and the colors distinct and rich, the whites bright white.

Bad weather is good for birding and birders feel like adventurers taking on the elements.  This Leastie was one of three working the muddied and puddled dirt road running across the Farm Institute at Katama, just as the strong easterly blow was subsiding.

Birds need to tend to their feathers, in detail.  In the process, this one appears to be in a state of preening ecstasy.

 Birds are cool!  Lanny

These images and Lanny McDowell Avian Art fine art prints are available for purchase. Contact me or View my gallery.

I have a list of folks who get an emailed notice from me with a URL to click on when I have posted a new blog.  There are also times when I just send out photos to the list without bothering to blog about them or post them to a listserve.  Not on the list?  Want to be? Just contact me  saying you want to be on the list or, better yet,  subscribe to Feedburner above, in the right side column for automatic blog feeds to your email.  Getting off the list is just as simple.

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If you want to delve  into the arcane business of confidently recognizing a Long-billed Dowitcher in the midst of short-billeds this time of year, and it’s still early, please go right ahead and let me know when you have a long-billed nailed down.  All the shorebird books take on this subject and, sort of like the fairly recent Gulls book, the more you read, the more confused and uncertain you are likely to become.  Less can be more.  Dump some of the plumage factors and go for structural comparison.  If you are lucky, really lucky, you will have one species beside the other and not a single bird, bill tucked and snoozing.

The reason for bringing this ID quandary (morass) to the fore is that I saw and photographed a dowitcher on July 29th out at the flats inside the opening of Tisbury Great Pond.  Its central tail feathers were rufous toward the tips, where the barring “should” have a white or light buffy color.  Most references do not mention this feature, but Paulson’s Shorebirds of North America does write about the rufous in the tail being an identifier for long-billed.

Well, in this case I do not happen to believe this, because in another shot taken of the same bird, the bill droops a bit in the last third of its length, which feature is mentioned as reliable for picking out a short-billed (versus a straighter bill for long-billed).  Since every set of comparisons for these two species seems to end up in the scrapheap of variability – except for voice, which all the writers embrace as distinctive – the tail feather ground color issue will be at home on the list of “may be a factor, but not reliable taken alone as a single distinguishing mark”.  In my book, anyway.

We all seem to want the elements that will offer us certainty, but like so many other BIG questions, sometimes the more you look, the less you know.  Not really fair, is it?

Check out the tail feather tips and the bill on this West Tisbury dow:

Dows are Cool! Lan

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These may all be birds that have been on Martha’s Vineyard over the winter … or not.  The Dunlin numbers seem about the same out on Katama Bay.  The BBPL numbers I think are  expanding.  In any case, both species are showing the beginnings of a molt into alternate plumage.  For the most part,this means just a few black belly or breast feathers replacing the basic winter ones.  Some Dunlin are appearing more red-backed than gray-brown.  Most are still rather dull.  Here & there you see a Black-bellied with a significant amount of black coming in, but that is still the exception.

These birds are feeding on the flats inside Katama Bay along the Norton Point area.

Birds are cool!  Lanny

These images and Avian Art fine art prints are available for purchase. Contact me or View my gallery.

I have a list of folks who get an emailed notice from me with a URL to click on when I have posted a new blog.  There are also times when I just send out photos to the list without bothering to blog about them or post them to a listserve.  Not on the list?  Want to be? Just contact me  saying you want to be on the list or, better yet,  subscribe to Feedburner above, in the right side column for automatic blog feeds to your email.  Getting off the list is just as simple.

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There are some simple reasons I can’t stay away from watching and photographing purples this time of year.  Firstly, they are here on the Vineyard and fairly uncommon most other places.  I know where to find them when I want to, usually up scouring the rocks at Squibnocket, because they are location loyal.  That’s about the habitat, which is the habitat that shows up in the bird photos below.  They are not always there, but they are likely to be there on a bright winter’s day.

The other factor that brings me back to find them is that they are relatively tame when feeding or resting, even with Stella at my side.  Stella is very respectful and patient when it’s clear that I am trying to move slowly or I’m waiting for the sandpipers to approach me as they move among the rocks.

There were only a few yesterday.  So few that I was keeping track of them.  If you spook one, the others nearby are likely to jump as well.  So I was being careful, moving slowly, placing each step among the stones underfoot.  I was moving the camera back and forth between three of them, all quite close.  When I was done and Stella and I maneuvered back out of the rocks to the sand beach, still moving slowly so as not to upset the pipers, we put up two more that were nearer than the ones I photographed.  They must have been resting, not moving, in the stones.  Pretty amazing.  And I am not bad at spotting them either, picking out their shapes.  So that makes five all together.

Birds are cool!  Lanny

These images and Avian Art fine art prints are available for purchase. Contact me or View my gallery.

I have a list of folks who get an emailed notice from me with a URL to click on when I have posted a new blog.  There are also times when I just send out photos to the list without bothering to blog about them or post them to a listserve.  Not on the list?  Want to be? Just contact me  saying you want to be on the list or, better yet,  subscribe to Feedburner above, in the right side column for automatic blog feeds to your email.  Getting off the list is just as simple.

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