HI ALL:
FYI

--
Ian Paulsen
Bainbridge Island, WA, USA
A.K.A.: "Birdbooker"
"Rallidae all the way!"

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Sun, 13 Jun 2004 14:50:54 -0500
From: Matt Kenne <mkenne at NETAMUMAIL.COM>
To: BIRDWG01 at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU
Subject: [BIRDWG01] new Golden Plover identification reference

Greetings,

An new paper has recently been published that has direct bearing on ongoing
attempts to identify out-of-range Golden Plovers:

Johnson, O.W. & Johnson, P.M. 2004. Morphometric features of Pacific and
American Golden-Plovers with comments on field identification. Wader Study
Group Bulletin 103: 42-49.

This is an important paper for the shorebirding community- not only was this
paper partly triggered by identification questions raised by birders, the
results are largely directed towards answering them. The Johnsons used
measurements gathered from 100s of fulva from over 20 years of study,
measurements of several dozen dominica captured on the Seward Peninsula in
the course of those studies, and unpublished data from colleagues across
Siberia to Churchill (all using the same measuring techniques) to address
such subjects as: the accuracy of comparing measurements in various
published references, the existence of "long-winged" fulva, the
relationships between tertials/tail/primaries, leg lengths, bill and
bill/eye ratios, and more. A few plover photos illustrate some of the
difficulties of this species pair. Oscar Johnson is the co-author of the
Birds of North America Golden Plover account.

Those Fall plovers are only a few short weeks away!

Matthew Kenne
Algona, Iowa
mkenne at netamumail.com