Wednesday 30 June 2010

Autumn birding starts early

Visited Holden Creek again this evening and found that the place was more like late summer than the end of June.
A group of mixed waders were feeding along the creek, the majority being western sandpiper (34) plus least sandpiper (11) and a single bird which I believe was a semi-palmated sandpiper.
Now, I realise that they're quiet scarce on this part of Vancouver Island, so I'm happy to be corrected. I'm not terribly familiar with the species having rarely seen them in the past, and the thing that really bothers me about this individual is that it appears to be a juvenile, and it just seems too early for a young bird of that species to be down here at the end of June. As I say, please correct me if I'm mistaken. Unfortunately I wasn't able to see any webbing between the bird's toes, and taking shots with a hand-held camera up to my 'scope doesn't allow for quality images that might reveal that feature. All the exposed feet shots are blurred. The only thing I can't figure out is; if it isn't a semi-p - what is it? Am I missing something really obvious?  
Anyway, here are some dodgy pics and a bit of footage.

 



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