Mike Smith wrote:

>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.

I guess to me the only flaw in this argument is that it flies in the face
of one of the most basic shorebird characteristics, exactly as you wrote,
their gregariousness. You know the old saying, "sandpipers who peck
together stick together." I would think if these birds ever even saw each
other ("omigosh, what are YOU doing here?"), much less made the flight from
Siberia together, they would stay together. Not as special friends, but
just because shorebirds are always trying to keep the other guy between
them and the Peregrine.

It's hard to accept that there were two birds, but only one present each
time observers visited. Would it have been easy to miss a second bird
among the other shorebirds?

We know that Sharp-tails at this time of year are cosmically rare, adults
to be considered real vagrants as much as any of our rarest shorebirds, and
we know that vagrants typically come in ones. And there is the other
problem that we don't know for sure there *is* an Alternate 1 plumage in
the species. Sheesh.

Well, it's almost another weekend, and who knows what else is lurking on
the mudflats.....

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