Tweeters,

I saw the Lesser Sand Plover (Charadrius mongolus) this morning (July 16th)
from 7:00 to 7:30 AM at Boundary Bay near White Rock and Ladner, BC. From
Blaine, take HWY 99 to exit 20 turn left onto the Ladner-Trunk Rd., go .3 miles
and turn left onto Hornby Dr. Go 1.3 miles, turn right at 104th St. Drive
to the end and park, walk east on the dike a few hundred yards. The dike
runs more or less east-west and goes east to 112th St. and west for several
miles, too. It has been seen each of the last 4 mornings just east of 104th St,
The bird appears to me to be a bright female. I say this because there is
no hint (on this bird) of the thin black line found on males that separates
the rufous breast from the stark-white throat. Also, the auriculars seem to be
dark brown rather than black. It is a very striking bird!! If you plan to
chase this bird, it is critical to arrive just before high tide so that you
can witness ALL of the falling tide. The high tide for tomorrow (July 17th)
is at 6:46 AM. The tide recedes quickly, so there is only a brief window of
opportunity to see the bird at close range. Jamie Acker and I sadly found
that out all too late on Sunday (15 July) when we arrived at 7:55 and the bird
had just flown off. Today it was loosely associating with a group of 8-10
Semi-palmated Plovers and was seen as close as 100 feet. Although the bird was
first found on the incoming evening tide, it has not been relocated on that
tide since. Today (July 16th) is the 5th day that it has been recorded at
Boundary Bay. Including the LS Plover, Jamie and I had 17 species of shorebirds
in the Boundary Bay area. The ponds at Reifel Refuge were great. LESSER and
GREATER YELLOWLEGS together, 100 LONG-BILLELD DOWITHCERS, and 4
SHORT-BILLELD for comparison. A SEMI-PALMATED SANDPIPER with 20 WESTERNS also made a
nice comparison. At Boundary Bay, breeding plumaged BLACK-BELLIED PLOVERS,
SANDERLINGS, LEAST SANDPIPERS, and 1000s of WESTERN SANDPIPERS would make the
trip worthwhile, the LESSER SAND PLOVER, nothwithstanding.

Cheers,
George Gerdts
Bainbridge Island, WA
_geopandion at aol.com_ (mailto:geopandion at aol.com)




************************************** Get a sneak peak of the all-new AOL at
http://discover.aol.com/memed/aolcom30tour