Hi Tweeters

David Wright queries:

>We had a Greater Yellowlegs at False Bay on San Juan Island on 11 June;
>was this more likely to be an early fall migrant or an oversummering bird?

And Dennis replied:

>I wouldn't be entirely surprised if it were a fall migrant. I saw one on
>10 June on Dodson Road last year, where none had been seen on previous
>visits.

I'd like to contribute something that might help answer queries such as
this: from putting together average arrival and departure dates for
seasonally- various birds in Vancouver BC I've noticed that, for most
species, juvenile shorebirds arrive pretty consistently about three weeks
after the first returning nonbreeders. I wish I could tell you what the juv
arrival of GRYE is (my hunch is that it's somewhere in the July 15--25
range), but unfortunately sighting records for the past decade and a half
mostly show just numbers, not plumage state, so it's impossible to
distinguish between sightings of adult and juvenile birds from the records
here. It's to build up a body of data detailed enough to answer queries like
this that I encourage local birders to report plumage state as well as
number of birds.

David and Dennis, five'll get ten that that at June 10 & 11 your birds were
too early for this species' migration and was summering, but a single bird
after (guesstimate) June 20 would be as likely to be a southbound bird as a
'floater': impossible to call. By June 25--30, I'd say surely a migrant,
part of a larger movement. Were there more in subsequent days?

Michael Price
Vancouver BC Canada
michael_price at mindlink