Dennis Paulson got in his (more authoritative) reply to Ed Ryback first,
but for what it's worth I'll add my observations. I was also at Bowerman
on Sunday, packing along Kenn Kaufman's field guide and Dennis's great
book in my determination to finally learn the dowitchers. I looked at
every dowitcher I could find and concluded that they were all Short-
billed. Relying on Kaufman's figures, I saw all the birds as _caurinus_,
with their white bellies and relatively light spotting; none had the
uniformly brownish-red underparts with dense spotting of the
Long-billed. With my bad ears, I can't pick up the calls easily, but a
fellow at Bottle Beach in the mid-afternoon, watching a much larger flock
of dowitchers, said that all he heard were Short-billed.

Burt Guttman guttmanb at elwha.evergreen.edu
The Evergreen State College Voice: 206-866-6000, x. 6755
Olympia, WA 98505 FAX: 206-866-6794