Subject: Re: how many Sharp-tailed Sandpipers?
Date: Jul 7 09:36:59 1995
From: Dennis Paulson - dpaulson at ups.edu


>I question, though, as Michael Price did, whether or not a bird in juvenile
>plumage would be around now.
>
>I guess stranger things have happened.
>
>Russell Rogers

Name one!

The earliest juvenile shorebird on record in the NW was a 12 July
Semipalmated Sandpiper (see my paper in Condor 85: 99-101, 1983). It was
astonishingly early compared with usual (or extreme) juvenile arrival
dates, and it's a smaller bird (shorter breeding time) from much nearer
breeding populations.

See Washington Birds 1: 27-32, 1989, for known early arrival dates of
juvenile shorebirds at that time (I don't think many have been modified
since).

And the first sightings of the bird were of an adult, the middle sightings
of an "immature," the last sighting of an adult. So it's not as if one
bird replaced the other (my estimate of such a probability in any case?
0.0000......)

Any observations since Steve Pink?

(please pardon my spelling corrections, Russell, I can't help myself)

Dennis Paulson, Director phone: (206) 756-3798
Slater Museum of Natural History fax: (206) 756-3352
University of Puget Sound e-mail: dpaulson at ups.edu
Tacoma, WA 98416