As Rolan Nelson mentioned in his earlier email, Natalie and I made the
trip along with Rolan out to see the Ruff along Moore Rd. near Satsop
today. We had great looks at the bird, including a few looks with it in
close proximity to the Greater Yellowlegs that it associates with in the
fields west of Moore Rd.

Although it was raining pretty hard, I was able to juggle using our
digital camera to shoot four decent shots of the Ruff through our
spotting scope. The shots can be seen at <http://www.whiterabbits.com/
2003photos/January/Ruff.jpg>.

Working through the photos clockwise, the first shot is a bit blurry but
it shows the dark, slightly D-curved bill, a slight mottled color on the
upper breast with a clear belly, and the dark line back from the eye that
is accentuated by a white supercillium. Overall, the bird is plump with a
small head, but the Ruff's long neck that is shown in most guidebooks is
not apparent in any of my photos. We did see the extended neck after the
bird was spooked into flight briefly by the Greater Yellowlegs.

The second photo is the best of the bunch. It clearly shows the orange-
yellow color at the base of the bill, as well as the wing and breast
coloring. The last shot, in the lower left hand corner of the image on
the Web page shows the Greater Yellowlegs in the foreground with its
obviously clear, bright breast as compared to the Ruff in the background.

I would have loved to get better shots of this bird, but today's weather
was challenging to say the least, and it grew worse as the day wore on.
Still, this was a great way to mark the new year.

Happy birding...

Rob McNair-Huff ---------- mailto:rob at whiterabbits.com
White Rabbit Publishing -- http://www.whiterabbits.com/
Mac Net Journal ---------- http://www.macnetjournal.com/
The Equinox Project ------ http://www.whiterabbits.com/weblog.html