Dennis' post made me laugh. He's right, many birds up there are very
'open' sexually. But then again I guess there's nowhere to hide. I saw
a curious thing up there. Most birds I've seen copulating do *it* very
quickly, hop on, rub cloacas for a few seconds, hop off, and then smoke a
cigarette. A friend and I came across 2 Baird's Sandpipers who were
going at it, and they didn't stop for 15 minutes while we watched. It
was amazing, they would copulate for a 5-minute stretch and only stop
when the male FELL off the female. He would immediately get back on and
continue. Mind you, we found them this way, so there's no telling how
long they were really doing *it*. But 15 minutes is the minimum.

While we're on the subject of shorebird sex, has anyone ever seen Dunlin
copulate? I met a student at UC-Davis up there, Nils Warnock, who told
me that a researcher he knew (name escapes me now) had studied Dunlin
for over 20 years, and was 'Mr. Dunlin', but had only seen them copulate
twice. Apparently it was a mystery as to where they *did it*. Maybe
Dennis has some knowledge of this? I though it was a neat that a
shorebird so abundant could still hide some of its biology from us.
Maybe they only do it at night, and hide behind rocks or logs :)

____________________________
Mike Smith
Univ. of Washington, Seattle
whimbrel at u.washington.edu