The continuation of the below
hypothetical exchange went as follows.
Ian said, ‘Don’t
cry. Tell me what it looked like.’ You described it to him.
Ian thought a bit about
that, and said: ‘This will sound a bit unusual, and I might be
wrong, but I think that was a Curlew Sandpiper that had retained quite a bit of
its breeding plumage’.
And it was.
Paul Taylor got it too.
The ‘hint’ pic showed 2 Curlew Sandpipers in normal eclipse
plumage.
The experienced Canberra
birdwatcher who proposed a (some might think) apt, if coarse, label based on
the bird’s posture gets one-quarter of a point.
From: Geoffrey Dabb [
Sent: Monday, 9 July 2007 8:59 AM
To:
Subject: FW: [canberrabirds] An unusual bird (2)
Re the below, a volley of shots
near the target but no bullseye. It is so important to keep Canberra
birdwatchers on their toes, I always say. This is all you might see
of the bird from the hide, when Ian Fraser walks in and says ‘Anything
around?’, and you turn to him to say ‘Yes, there’s an unusual
wader out there near the pelican’ and when you look back it’s gone,
never to be seen again
