Common Ringed Plover!

After countless hours studying and reviewing the finer details of Common Ringed vs Semipalmated Plover ID it has all finally paid off.

This morning I joined 4 other local birders to check out the shorebirds at Bellevue beach. The small tidal flat is rich in mussels and other invertebrates and attracts hundreds of shorebirds at this time of year. I was hoping to get an accurate count of the birds and do a bit of teaching to show the others how to ID some of them down to species and age.

Within 2 minutes of starting the first scan of the shorebirds I happened upon a surprisingly pale Semipalmated-like plover. Then the bird turned towards me and showed off its wide black breast band and I could see the evident white supercilium. The next 1.5 hours was spent trying to study and photograph this bird while it tirelessly ran around the flats at a distance. Eventually it roosted for 10-15 minutes at a reasonable distance allowing us to get some photos.

The bird was never very close, so we never got the full frame photos we were dreaming of. But I do think the photos I got should make a strong case for CRPL. Hopefully Lisa & Frank got some photos to help prove the ID (keep an eye on Lisa's blog for her photos).

While the bird was roosting the wide breast band was more compact and was often not noticeably wider than that of a Semipalmated Plover (SEPL). When it was feeding the breast band stood out as being very broad and even in width.

The white supercilium (white eyebrow) stood out to all of us and was usually the best feature to look for to find the bird when scanning the plovers.

The bird can be found in this picture by looking for that strong white supercilium and relatively pale back.

The CRPL is an adult (and I think it's a male) and is to the left in the following photo. In the middle is a female adult SEPL, and on the right an adult male SEPL. 2 Ruddy Turnstones and a Black-bellied Plover as well.

Note the slightly paler back (which was more noticeable in real life), the much stronger and straight white supercilium, the bird seemed larger at times than nearby SEPLs but that isn't very obvious in these photos. The slightly longer bill can be seen in the below photo if you enlarge it.

Although the right most SEPL seems to have a wider breast band in the following photo than the CRPL, you can see that the breast band is wide along the sides of the breast and narrows towards the centre of the breast - very typical of SEPL (in fact, the breast band is often incomplete and is divided by white along the centre of the breast). Although not visible in this photo, the black breast band of the CRPL was a more even width across the entire breast.

The above photo is the best one I got to show the difference in the lores. On the CRPL the lore is not pinched before the bill, instead it meets the gape of the bill. Whereas in both of these SEPLs you can see that the lore is pinched just before the bill and only meets the bill above the gape. A very fine detail, but an important one in the ID of this species as it is consistent across all ages (beware that some SEPLs do have lores that meet the gape of the bill - I have photos to prove it!!!)

After enlarging all the photos I took I could see no sign of a yellow/orange ring around the eye - another indication for CRPL, and despite the distance it was faintly visible on some SEPLs. However, with the distance the lack of yellow/orange around the eye was difficult to confirm.

The shape of the black cheeks is a useful feature in my opinion to separate the two species (especially for juveniles). The CRPL has a black band that is more even in width across the face, whereas the black band on the SEPL widens just behind the eye.

The breast band was much wider when the bird was feeding, than when it was roosting (didn't get any photos of it front on while feeding). But this photos shows that the breast band width was very variable depending on its position.

Circumstantial evidence for the CRPL:

It rarely associated with the SEPLs. Preferring to stay away from them when there was enough space. Eventually when the tide rose, it was forced to be in the company of SEPLs (as in the above photos) but never flew off when all the surrounding SEPLs flew away - it was one of the last plovers to leave the area when the tide finally forced all the shorebirds away.

The date (August 15) is right on time for previous CRPL records in Newfoundland. I think there are about 15-20 records for the island. One was found at the same location on August 14, 2001, and another last year on August 16 (2013) in Renews. Adults have been found as late as Sept 17, and as early as August 7.

Unfortunately we did not hear it vocalize. And we were never close enough to see the webbing between the toes (or lack thereof).

The lack of a yellow/orange ring around the eye was never easy to confirm from the distance that we were at.

I welcome comments on the ID of this bird. Leave them below, or email me privately (alvanbuckley AT gmail.com).

Greater Yellowlegs & Ring-billed Gulls

Could there be a less enticing blog post title? Two of the most common species that I too am guilty of brushing over 99% of the time.

But today on a drizzly day those were the two species I focused on.

There were 2 Greater Yellowlegs at the West end of Virginia Lake. One was a juvenile, the other an adult - both were actively catching small fish.

First up is the juv:

And the adult:

If you focus on the wing feathers you'll notice that the adult has a lot less white around the edges and at the tip of those wing feathers (i.e. the scapulars and wing coverts) in comparison to the juvenile. This is what gives the juvenile a more crisp and scaly appearance.

The adult also has a more messy breast band:

The juvenile has a more neat breast band - an effect brought about by the fact that the individual dots are more sharply defined:

A closer look at the scapulars and wing coverts of the adult:

Note that there is a mix of fresh gray and old dark feathers. The fresh ones are a light gray, have a dark streak along their centre, and have white around the outer border. Whereas the old scapular feathers are a dark brown almost approaching black, and the old wing covert feathers are brown and look tattered. This mix of worn and fresh feathers is typical of adult Greater Yellowlegs at this time of year.


At the west end of Quidi Vidi there was a handful of Ring-billed Gulls hanging around (as usual).

All the adult Ring-billed Gulls had very limited to no white at the tip of their black primary feathers. Adult Ring-billed Gulls in high-breeding plumage have prominent white tips to these feathers. But by this time of year the white has mostly worn away.

Here's a closer look at the same bird:

This open wing shot of another adult shows that it only has the outer 5 primary feathers remaining. The inner 5 primary feathers of most gulls are usually lost while the adults are incubating the eggs. They then interrupt their molt and wait until after the chicks are independent to resume their pre-basic molt. So it should be shedding these feathers soon.

A closer look. The two outer primaries have what are called white windows. The one on p10 is larger. Some adult Ring-billed Gulls don't have a window on p9.

Here's a juvenile Ring-billed Gull. Very fresh looking!

And the open wing:

There's a lot of secrets hidden within the feathers of birds. Their molt patterns often reflect their behaviour through the seasons.

Male Northern Pintails are now in eclipse plumage:

Branch, NL - Shorebirds

Joined local birders Alison & Ethel this morning to search for a Ruby-throated Hummingbird in Branch, NL. Although we didn't manage to see the hummer we were surprised by the abundance of shorebirds (by NL standards anyway) on the small tidal flat in the community. We counted over 170 shorebirds and decided to take the time to study them a bit more closely (thanks to Alison for being my note keeper while I counted and aged the shorebirds!!) and also photograph them.

This juvenile Semipalmated Plover was my first young one for that species this season:

Common Ringed Plover can be ruled out from the above picture because there's slight webbing seen between the middle & outer toes, the lores are pinched just before they meet the bill, and the dark mask widens behind the eye (whereas it generally has a more even width throughout on a CRPL). Not that CRPL's are common here (only about 15-20 records, and only 1 was a juvenile I think) - but all Semipalmated Plovers should be checked closely as I'm sure many get over-looked, and if you're not studying the SEPLs it makes it hard to find a CRPL!

All the White-rumped Sandpipers so far have been adults. Typically juvenile WRSAs arrive much later than juveniles of the other sandpiper species. Last year my first juvenile WRSAs were on September 21st. But they probably start arriving in early September sometime...

On the left is a juvenile Semipalmated Sandpiper (SESA), and on the right is a juvenile Least Sandpiper (LESA).

Beginner birders often try to distinguish these two species by the colour of the legs (dark in SESA, yellowish in LESA). And I did as well when I started out. But after studying hundreds and seeing thousands of these peeps over the years, you start to absorb other more subtle features to help ID them more instinctively (and reliably) without having to rely on difficult to see and unreliable features such as leg colour.
The LESA is noticeably more red/orange in its plumage as compared to the grayer SESA (although they too can have some redness at times).

The white throat is less noticeable in LESA, and the streaking on the breast sides is more defined whereas I find it more 'blurry' on a SESA and it usually doesn't form a complete breast band on the SESA. Another juvenile LESA for comparison:

One of the more subtle features that you may sometimes use (cautiously!) to help separate the two species from a distance is the shape of the neck/head. I often find that SESA has a more chunky appearance due to the apparently shorter neck. LESA is more thin along the neck and head. Definitely a subtle feature that I'm not describing very well...

  Some LESAs can try to confuse you by seeming to have fairly whitish throats, and prominent white eyebrows (i.e. superciliums):

But the orange cast to the wing feathers, yellow legs, and streaked breast markings point towards LESA.

The highlight from Branch were 2 Short-billed Dowitchers. To top it off one was an adult and the other a juvenile giving me my first real chance to compare the two plumages directly. Big difference! Only problem is that the adult was more timid and flew off well before I had an opportunity to photograph it and share my findings.

Here's the juvenile SB Dowitcher:

 It wasn't all tidal flats today. We searched tundra habitat for Whimbrel and Horned Larks without finding any:

A Northern Blue butterfly was on the tundra:

As were a couple Rusty Tussock Moths (aka Vapourer!!) - correct me if the ID is wrong:

Earlier in the day we birded some boreal habitat and saw a juv. Hermit Thrush:

And a few Brown Creepers:

But yeah, the dowitchers were definitely the highlight for me:

First time I've photographed a juvenile dowitcher!

 Lots of White-rumped Sandpipers at this location today. We had a high count of 94! I only saw a total of 129 last year in NL, so I'm off to a good start towards beating that total... there's always some new standard to improve on thanks to the endless stream of eBird stats.

A typical view of a Newfoundland White-rumped Sandpiper rummaging around like a dumpster-diver in beached kelp.