>I got mine there in an equally strange way. I wasn't really looking
>for one, just walking (I was down there working) in the late afternoon
>at high tide. It was a very high tide, with water lapping right up
>to a dike I was on, which was broad and kind of thick with vegetation.
>
>I was right near the water and one burst into flight from almost between
>my feet!
>
>- Don Baccus, Portland OR <donb at rational.com>

I haven't "got" mine in any way, shape, or form in North America. I did
see one in Costa Rica, flushed at pointblank range from my feet, and I got
great looks as it fluttered away. Other Central American ornithologists
still don't believe me (or Gordon Orians, who also saw them in the same
marsh), as there are no other records from southern Central America.

But I didn't write this to bemoan my raillessness, rather to cite another
interesting way to get a life bird. When I got back from Australia I
discovered I had a great photo of an Asiatic Dowitcher right in the middle
of a mixed flock of shorebirds that I photographed. I never saw the bird
in the field, camouflaged among the Great Knots and Black-tailed and
Bar-tailed godwits. Would you have counted it? I "saw" it, I've got proof
of it, and I counted it. Bring on the flames!

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