I have been going through old photos stored on hard drives and deleting ones that are bad or repetitive. The process has been very educational as I ponder why a photo was bad and what I can do to take a better one. At the rate I am going, I don't know if I will ever get through them all.
I came across photos of a lone shorebird that I took on 8-13-10 at Shell Creek Spit in Edmonds. The spit can be seen during low tide by looking north up the shoreline from Sunset Ave. or Brackett's Landing. Birds use the spit as a source of fresh water for drinking and bathing.
At first glance the bird looks like a dunlin, but its body seems taller and thinner and its legs seem longer. It also appears to be a lighter color than dunlin that I have photographed in Edmonds, especially in the breast and neck. I wonder if it could be a curlew sandpiper, a native to the Siberian Arctic that closely resemble dunlin. According to the the Audubon Guide to North American Birds, a few curlew sandpipers turn up on the Atlantic Coast every year, but it is only a rare visitor to the rest of North America.
http://www.audubon.org/field-guide/bird/curlew-sandpiper
There have been reports in Tweeters of sightings of curlew sandpipers in Washington. I would like to hear the opinions of others as to whether this is a curlew sandpiper, just another dunlin, or some other bird. I have more photos, but these are the best. The bird was by itself, so there are no photos of it with other birds for a size reference.
I came across photos of a lone shorebird that I took on 8-13-10 at Shell Creek Spit in Edmonds. The spit can be seen during low tide by looking north up the shoreline from Sunset Ave. or Brackett's Landing. Birds use the spit as a source of fresh water for drinking and bathing.
At first glance the bird looks like a dunlin, but its body seems taller and thinner and its legs seem longer. It also appears to be a lighter color than dunlin that I have photographed in Edmonds, especially in the breast and neck. I wonder if it could be a curlew sandpiper, a native to the Siberian Arctic that closely resemble dunlin. According to the the Audubon Guide to North American Birds, a few curlew sandpipers turn up on the Atlantic Coast every year, but it is only a rare visitor to the rest of North America.
http://www.audubon.org/field-guide/bird/curlew-sandpiper
There have been reports in Tweeters of sightings of curlew sandpipers in Washington. I would like to hear the opinions of others as to whether this is a curlew sandpiper, just another dunlin, or some other bird. I have more photos, but these are the best. The bird was by itself, so there are no photos of it with other birds for a size reference.
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