lies:

acryptozoo:

Pectoral Sandpiper (Calidris melanotos)

#289

While chasing the Pacific Golden-Plover yesterday I was basically in shorebird heaven. There were SO MANY SHOREBIRDS roaming the thick accumulation of wrack on Goleta West Beach. One bird that intrigued me was in a large group of Sanderlings; it was just a tad bigger than they were, with a sharp demarcation between the streaked breast and the white belly. I took a bunch of (crappy) photos through my spotting scope and compared them to references when I got home.

I wish I’d been close enough to see the yellow legs, but even without that I think it’s clear enough to make the call. Pectoral Sandpiper it is. 🙂👍

And… nope. Experts tell me (and with the benefit of hindsight I should have realized) it was a Sanderling that stood out from the rest because it was still in breeding plumage.

So erase this as county year bird #289 and decrease all subsequent birds by one.

It’s embarrassing to have gotten it wrong, not so much because I didn’t know the difference (because there’s always more to learn) but because I let my desire for it to be a new bird overcome my judgment about how sure I could be about the ID.

This is the third time this year I’ve done something like this (that I know of). Once I tried to make a Greater Yellowlegs into a Lesser, and twice I’ve tried to turn Sanderlings into something else: once into a Western Sandpiper and now into a Pectoral Sandpiper.

I’m getting better at identifying the tricky ones, and mistakes are helpful for learning. But clearly I need to put some time into sustained shorebird study.

Reposted from http://lies.tumblr.com/post/177697046736.

Tags: carp without cars, santa barbara county year list.

This entry was posted by jbc on Monday, September 3rd, 2018 at 8:14 am and is filed under Tumblr. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.