Subject: Shorebirds at SJCR - 7/23/2001
Date: Jul 23 19:07:35 2001
From: Mike Patterson - celata at pacifier.com


I went out the the South Jetty this afternoon for high
tide, arriving a few minutes after 1600hr. About 15
CASPIAN TERNS and a flock of 30+ WESTERN SANDPIPERS were
at the west pond. The terns left as I approached scaring
off the sandpipers as they went.

I deployed 6 styrofoam generic calidris sandpipers and a
wooden generic mid-sized shorebird at about 1615hr. Within
about 5mins a flock of 8 Westerns and 2 Least landed within
3 meters of the decoys. Since I cannot say with any certainty
that they would not have landed anyway, today's test remains
inconclusive. I will put the decoys in different places
each day to see if the birds preferentially land near them.

Shorebird list:
Black-bellied Plover 1
Semipalmated Plover 2
Whimbrel 1
Sanderling 1
Western Sandpiper 40
Least Sandpiper 5

--
Mike Patterson Alas, to wear the mantle of Galileo,
Astoria, OR it is not enough to be persecuted
celata at pacifier.com by an unkind establishment,
you must also be right.
---Robert Park
http://www.pacifier.com/~mpatters/bird/bird.html