For what it's worth, to me, the eyebrow in the Pectoral is much less
pronounced than in the Sharpie. Legs are much yellower than a Sharpie.
Head is relatively small compared to a Sharpie. Sharpies seem to vary
in colour, markings and size more than any other wader I have met! Of
course, what we need is the situation we had 2 years ago with Pectoral,
Sharpie and LT Stint standing together.
Sue
-----Original Message-----
From: Allan and Hazel Wright
Sent: Wednesday, 19 January 2005 7:14 AM
To:
Subject: Kellys
Sorry I haven't logged on since the week-end so have missed the debate
about
the sandpipers.
It really takes a brave heart to report a non-breeding wader when only 2
of
us saw it. Seems a 'verifying' person is handy to have around to give
the
report credence.
But let me say this bird had a pronounced eyebrow, same as Sharpie, but
it
did have a dark cap and definitely not chestnut. The legs were
yellowish
and it had a definite line between the dark (upper) and light (lower)
parts
of its chest; I would call this a breast plate.
Unlike Martin, we did not proceed to the far side of the pond and saw
the
bird from the Cygnus hide and from the mown grassy area further along
towards the school.
I must say it took some time for us, taking turns using the scope, to
scan
along the shoreline to find the bird as it was very glary at that time
of
day. Enough of that now.
We went back out there on Sunday on our way to the concert at the
Botanic
Gardens. The thought of seeing a BB Rail is quite a magnet but alas, no
rails running around as they were on Lady Elliott Island some few years
ago.
Don't they realise there are a lot of people just waiting to put another
tick on their ACT Bird List.
The weather was cooler and the light so much better but no waders.
There
were the 4 BF dotterels - 2 adult, 2 imm. at least one Snipe, plenty of
waterfowl and a Little Grassbird calling but not seen as it was
somewhere in
the grass on the 'far side'.
What I would like to know is "why are the waders always on the far side"
Makes them very hard to ID.
Allan and Hazel Wright
Canberra ACT
The Nation's Capital
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