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Off Topic - Help with shorebird ID, please

To:
Subject: Off Topic - Help with shorebird ID, please
From: Koren Mitchell <>
Date: Thu, 07 Apr 2005 08:30:44 +0800
Looks to me like a Red Phalarope (Phalaropus fulicarius). I have a copy of "Shorebirds - An Identification Guide" by Hayman, Marchant and Prater which has a picture of the moulting juvenile, and it looks just like this. Also check out http://www.houghtonmifflinbooks.com/peterson/resources/identifications/reph/index.shtml
for some pictures and description. Apparently they mostly live offshore but get blown inshore during storms, which fits with where you saw it.

Cheers, Koren

At 08:08 7/04/2005, wrote:
This request is off topic because I saw and photographed this little shorebird on the coast of Oregon, in the USA, not in Australia.  I know that some American birders read this list, though, and shorebirds often travel great distances, so maybe this species has been seen by someone in Australia or Asia.  I saw the bird right after a large storm, in November of 1997.
 
I have been digitizing some old Hi-8 video, and I ran across some footage of this little guy.  I hadn't started birding in 1997, but I don't recall ever seeing another bird like this, in extensive birding up and down the west coast during the last five years.  I apologize for the quality of the pictures - they are screen captures from the video.
 
I have posted four pictures of the bird, at the bottom of the home page of my web site: www.barry15.com .  Scroll down to the bottom of the page to see the four pictures.
 
My best guess is a juvenile Sanderling, but I have never seen a Sanderling with black markings on its head like this, nor does the color of the wings seem right for a Sanderling.  It seems like this bird is probably in between its breeding plumage and its winter plumage, but even taking that into consideration, I can't identify it.  From the video and some comments I made at the time, I think the size was in the 6 to 8 inch range, probably toward the smaller end of that range.
 
Any help, anyone?
 
Thanks in advance for any help anyone can give.
 
Barry
 


Koren Mitchell
Hong Kong
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