Jack Presley and I walked around Morgan Lake this morning. Water is being
released into the Slough into the Refuge below of the same name west from
Salem. The Lake's water level is now down enough to expose the best
mudflats around, along with the giant freshwater snails that live there,
the snails that make life so good for the birds and mammals there this time
of year
I birded a lot in Polk County many years ago when my family owned a little
hobby farm out there, and I still bird Polk a lot. This time of year every
year in September, Morgan Lake is your best bet around here for a 'good'
bird.
The muck around the edges is silky smooth and that led to my serious mental
confusion this morning: 1) I was sure we were looking at 2 Semipalmated
Sandpipers, and 2) a little later I got suspicious when I thought we were
seeing a Wilson's Plover it surely looked like one
Here is what happened: it was the silky smooth muck coating the bills and
the legs of the birds in question, so that even in scope views up close sun
behind us it looked like the bill and leg color of a Wilson's Plover that
was really a juvenile SEMIPALMATED PLOVER and 2 bills of Semipalmated
Sandpiper that were really 2 WESTERN SANDPIPERS. After the birds moved and
got into a little more water so some silky silk muck washed off, it was
only then could I see things as they really are
Roy Gerig, enlightened once again in Salem OR
