On Fri, 7 Jul 1995, Dennis Paulson wrote:
> caught up in Western or Semipalmated migration in this direction. I've
> often wondered if that's why we get so many Sharp-tailed Sandpipers,
> because the Pectorals with which they share the Siberian tundra are mostly
> migrating into this hemisphere in the fall. Of course this wouldn't

and also wrote:
>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?

Knowing that shorebirds are highly gregarious, why can't the above logic
extend to *2* sharp-taileds leaving together. Granted, 2 birds don't
make a flock, but why rule out that possiblity. Based on 3 independent
observations of each bird, it sounds like their are 2 birds. Michael
Price asked if one could be a Pec, I think Jim Nestler described in his
post a point-by-point comparison with a Pec. The adult described is
clearly a Sharp-tailed. Think about it, if either of these birds showed
up alone, and was reported to the records committee, they would probably
accept either one, based on independent reports of the *same characters*.
Why not have 2 Sharp-taileds, who happen to be travelling together, come
down the wrong coast? The odds of this are much greater than 2 birds
from independent areas coincidentally ending up at Crockett Lake.

-------------
Michael R. Smith
Univ. of Washington, Seattle
whimbrel at u.washington.edu
http://salmo.cqs.washington.edu/~wagap/mike.html