once again, high tide provided some nice opportunities for photos
yesterday... the long-billed curlew, as mr taylor reported earlier, is
still around, but the whimbrel (who had occasionally been seen recently) was
not... unfortunately, the LBCU didn't show until a little after high tide,
and not close enough for a decent pic this week... the shots from two weeks
ago are available, though, at the end of the gallery.. even so, a little
ingenuity paid off, and i found myself surrounded, within a few feet of a
nice-sized flock of semipalmated plovers, westerns and least sandpipers
(maybe 200 birds at that time)....

oh #1: i turned my almost-six-foot height into about 1-foot by lying flat
on a piece of drift in the middle of the mudflats... someone said later i
looked a bit scary, what with gloopy-dark mud almost up to my arthritic
knees (and elsewhere here-and-there), but i love it when they allow me to
become part of the scenery... it is incredible to be inside a peep tornado
when they take off (or land)... i suppose i should ask the mountaineers
photo group (led by sunny walters) if they got a pic of me in the mud :)

oh #2: there was a reputable report of a red knot mixed in with the peeps,
along with a pair of sanderlings, at the same time the curlew was on stage
(at about high tide). they were reported on the lagoon's northern sand
spit...

photos are available, as usual, in the Photos of the Month gallery on my
website... and, as high tides are advantageous two weeks from now for the
last weekend of the free ferry, i'll once again by located in the lagoon at
jetty island...

hope to meet some of you there... :)

00 caren
http://www.parkgallery.org
jetty island
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