OHIO-BIRDS Archives

July 2008

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From:
Kenn Kaufman <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Kenn Kaufman <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Wed, 30 Jul 2008 01:27:33 -0400
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Thanks to Gabe Leidy for posting a very intriguing set of pictures!  This bird is not a straightforward I.D. by any means.  Many birders would have overlooked it altogether, or would have just identified it on bill shape alone, so Gabe deserves major credit for giving it a closer look.  

The bird is a moderately worn adult -- which is too bad, since right about now the first juvenile shorebirds are showing up, and fresh juvs are often a lot easier to identify than worn adults!  In studying the photos, I'm inclined to agree with Gabe and with Craig Holt that a number of things about the bird suggest it's not a Western Sandpiper.  Westerns can look just as ratty as Semis by this late in the summer, but I would expect even a worn and molting adult to show some rufous on the upperparts and some retained spotting on the flanks.  This bird looks quite dark on the chest and on the head, and I wouldn't expect a Western to be so dark in those areas and yet lack discrete, well-defined flank spots.  Also, as Craig points out, the head shape and overall body shape don't look right for Western.  

However, several things about the bird seem odd for Semipalmated as well.  It seems awfully dark and brown-toned, even compared to typical Semis in the same photos.  The dark streaked chest and the dark look of the face seem unexpected.  In many of the photos, the bird is leaning forward and probing fairly deeply in the water -- of course Semis will do that at times, and of course feeding posture is a "soft" criterion anyway, but I don't expect Semipalmated Sandpipers to forage in that way so consistently that it would show up in multiple photos.  And then, of course, there's that bill shape, which is on the long end of variation for Semi and also appears in some photos to have an odd curve to it.  

Some of my birding friends hate it when I bring up "the H-word," but I too wondered about some kind of hybrid when I first looked at the pictures -- wondering, for example, what a Least Sandpiper X Dunlin hybrid would look like.  (I'm NOT suggesting that that's what the bird is!)  Hybrids are pretty rare in the sandpiper family, but the infamous "Cox's Sandpiper," described to science from the wintering grounds in Australia, apparently was an example of such a hybrid type (with the promiscuous Pectoral Sandpiper as one probable parent).  There is always the outside possibility that a confusing bird might be a hybrid, and even if we can't prove it in a given case, it's one more reason why "unidentified" is sometimes the smartest answer.   

If I were forced to make a species-level guess on this bird, I'd say it was most likely a female Semipalmated Sandpiper from the eastern part of the breeding range (where they average longer-billed), and an individual with some problems, being overdeveloped in some ways and out of sync with others of its species in plumage condition.  That IS just a guess, though, and officially I don't know what the bird is.  But often we can learn a lot about identification through careful study of birds that remain unidentified.  Thanks for the photos, Gabe!

Kenn Kaufman
Oak Harbor, Ohio 

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