Coyote Hills Pectoral Sandpiper September 2009
Lovely dawn. Yes, we got up her crack and decided to head out early to Coyote Hills. Great idea - I checked the news groups and saw that several pectoral sandpipers had been spotted there towards the end of the week, so why not? Got there and followed the directions to where the sandpipers had been spotted and did indeed spot some. Now, the only slight problem is that I'm not really sure what one sandpiper looks like from another. If I may even try my hand at an audubon joke, I'd have to say that the problem with sandpipers is that it's very difficult to tell on from the plover. Yep, not going to give up that day job. Anyway, did bump into someone who knew what they were doing so know the last picture (towards the end) marked as a pectoral sandpiper is of a pectoral sandpiper. I'm reasonably sure that the others are too which means I ended up with some pretty good shots of them. The other interesting picture is the one that I think is of a loggerhead shrike. I actually thought this was a scrub jay when I took the photo, but am pretty sure it's not one now I've had a good chance to look at it. So, the bird list, to the best of my knowledge, is:
- American White Pelican
- Black Phoebe
- Cooper's Hawk
- Great Egret
- Greater Yellowlegs
- Killdeer
- Least Sandpiper
- Loggerhead Shrike (I think)
- Mallard
- Marsh Wren
- Northern Shoveler
- Pectoral Sandpiper
- White-Crowned Sparrow
- Willet
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