About 11:30 this morning I went to check out Leonard's Pond and found Ken
Ranck and his daughters puzzling over a peep. It was in the near west corner
of
the pond and feeding with sewing-machine-like movements in the shallow water
just offshore. Close examination revealed it to be a Baird's Sandpiper.
According to Clair Mellinger's Birds of Rockingham County, Virginia, there are
two
other records of this species for Rockingham County, both from October 1982,
two on the 4th and one on the 12th, almost 21 years ago. They were also seen
at Leonard's Pond.
The bird was most cooperative, generally staying within fifty yards of us and
for most of the time about 20-30 yards away. Every so often it would fly out
on a short sally over the field and immediately return to feed again at the
pond's edge. The sun was directly behind us as we looked down on the bird from
the road. It gave us "killer looks" repeatedly through our scopes. If it
wandered farther up the shore, then it flew back or turned and worked its way
back close to us. Our presence did not seem to bother it. As it took off it
gave a call that sounded like "creek!" which we heard on several occasions.
Its appearance was generally a light brownish. The bill and legs were black;
the tip of the bill appeared more blunt than sharp. Below the
finely-streaked-with-black feathering of the head (on a light brown base) was a
pale
superciliary line, and the eye had a very fine whitish eye-ring around it. The
cheeks were buffy. There was a light buffy breast-band with some fine darker
streaking that went all the way across the chest except that in its upper part,
at
the midline, the buffy and streaking was replaced by a thin whitish area.
That area did not break the bottom of the breast band, however. The primary
feathers were black and clearly projected beyond the outer tail feathers, which
were a dull whitish and quite in contrast to the primaries. When the bird flew
it did not show a white rump; it had a fairly wide black line down the middle
of the rump. The underwings were mostly white and there was a modest
wing-stripe visible on the top. The long-winged effect of the bird made it
look as
if it the rear end of the bird had been pulled out. (The only nearby bird to
compare it with in size was a Solitary Sandpiper; there were two Least
Sandpipers some fifty yards further up the shoreline.) The belly and undertail
coverts were whitish but there was a very light buffy wash on the flanks near
the
wings, so that when the bird was on the ground, the buffy part covered the
bends
of the wings. In front of the wings was a whitish prong that went up toward
the back, after the manner of a Spotted Sandpiper, but not quite as
prominently as in that species.
The brownish-streaked-with-fine-black feathering on the top of the head
continued onto the back of the neck, the uppermost part of the back, and a
little
ways narrowly down the midline of the back; but on either side of that midline,
there was a strikingly different black-and-white scaling effect down the rest
of the back. With the bird at rest, the lesser and median wing-coverts
showed squarish and slightly-rounded-off-at-the-corners black spots, unlike the
diamond-, arrow-point-, or club-shaped feathers in the same place on other
species of peeps. The feather edgings all along the back and wings were white,
with
the single exception of the tertials, which had a chestnut edging to them.
The entire bird gave a lighter brown effect rather than the more reddish and
otherwise darker brown effect of the Least Sandpipers up the shore from it.
After careful examination and note-taking, we agreed it fit well with the
description of a juvenile Baird's Sandpiper in The Sibley Field Guide to Birds,
Eastern North America.
Just after the Rancks left, about an hour after my arrival, I spotted the
Golden-Plover on the opposite (east) shore of the pond. I believe it is the
same
bird we had here several days ago. The only difference I could tell was that
the black patch of the alternate plumage on its belly which was a solid mass
before was now somewhat broken up with white replacement feathering. The
golden flecking still goes all the way down the back. The bird stands out
among
the score of Killdeer it is usually found among because it is taller and larger
and mostly because the white bar across the forehead just over the bill, and
connecting with the white superciliary line on the side of the head, is so
bright. It fed along the water's edge and preened but again would not show me
its underwing. After I got home I found Brenda Tekin had sent me her picture
of
the bird taken two days ago with its wing stretched out (showing the top side
of the wing) and revealing a definite wing-stripe. She had sent it to Ned
Brinkley for his comment also. (Thanks, Brenda; why not put that on the Net
for
everyone to see?) The Eurasian Golden-Plover (Pluvialis apricaria) pictures
in both Sibley and in Shorebirds: An Identification Guide by Peter Hayman,
John Marchant, and Tony Prater show a minimal wingstripe in the American
Golden-Plover (Pluvialis dominica) and a somewhat stronger one, if not a very
long
one, in apricaria. A view of the underside of the wing (gray in dominica,
white
in apricaria) would settle the matter. I guess there's nothing for it but to
go back to Leonard's Pond and try to be watching when that Golden-Plover
lifts its wing. I'm certainly glad that it didn't fly the coop (unless, of
course, this is a different individual).
Birds present at Leonard's Pond this noon:
Canada Goose 92
Mallard 11
Blue-winged Teal 2
Golden-Plover sp. 1
Killdeer 20
Lesser Yellowlegs 1
Solitary Sandpiper 1
Least Sandpiper 2
Pectoral Sandpiper 2
Baird's Sandpiper 1
and, mirabile dictu, not a single swallow!
John Irvine
Harrisonburg, VA
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