I had a great time at the South Jetty Sunday, May 17,
watching the two BRISTLE-THIGHED CURLEWS.

My favorite observations were watching one of the curlews
catch, kill, and eat two crabs. Mike Patterson called them
SHORE CRABS, which sounds like a good name to me. These are
small crabs that scurry around in early morning and hide
under rocks later in the day. The curlew's long curved bill
was the perfect tool for probing under rocks to locate
crabs. We noticed curlew tracks in the sand along the
bottom edge of the jetty where they had searched for crabs
earlier in the day.

The curlew's technique for killing the crab surprised me.
The curlew picked the crab up and with a violent twist of
its neck swung it around and slammed it down against the
sand. It then carried the crab to an area with small rocks,
which fortunately brought it within 20 feet of us. We
watched it slam the crab repeatedly (41 separate slams!)
until the crab finally broke apart on a rock. As individual
crab legs flew off, the curlew ate those. It was
spectacular to watch. I captured this all on video and it
is great fun to watch. Also have video of two curlews
flying away, with the distinct cinnamon rump and tail.

We spent quite a while watching a RED KNOT feeding on ghost
shrimp, some of them quite large; and a BLACK-BELLIED PLOVER
darting after and snatching something from the loose sand.
These two birds came quite close as we quietly watched.

A memorable birding day!!

Karen Rentz
Shelton, WA