Hello Tweets,

We have just updated our website with many photos of the adult Stilt Sandpiper photographed yesterday at Midway Beach Rd. These photos are excellent and are by far our best photos currently of this species! It was not only exciting to photograph the bird,but to watch it run around the freshwater area as well as watch it take short flights. The bird was very energetic and seemed to favor areas nearest the road by plucking at the surface of the water,but also plunging it's head into the water too. It was challenging to take our photos since the conditions were so windy,but also that the bird was so active too! We took so many photos of the bird,but only placed some of the best photos on our website! Many of the photos appear very similar,but everyone is different in it's own way from the position of the bird such as how the bird stands or hold's it's body.

We watched the bird from every angle possible unlike the bird at Ocean Shores,but still feel this could be the same bird and it just found another spot for feeding. It was just great to see both birds,as we would have never expected to encounter this species in 2 coastal counties in such a short period of time. Both the Oyhut Wildlife Area and Midway Beach Rd. are excellent locations for shorebirds and change daily,but both locations offer different feeding. We initially made the visit to Midway Beach Rd. yesterday afternoon in search of Red-necked Phalaropes since that location remains flooded,so finding the Stilt Sandpiper was an added bonus! We feel we may never have the opportunity again to get the photos we did of the bird at least not in Washington and the plumage the bird was in.

Additionally, we obtained superb photos of 2 of the 4 Semipalmated Sandpiper present at Midway Beach Rd. yesterday. These birds were also cooperative and didn't mind us being so close as they foraged along the shoreline. The Semipalmated Sandpipers were quite aggressive towards the Western Sandpipers and they would often interact with them for feeding spots. During this interaction the difference in the calls between both species was heard well too!

Our photos of both the Stilt Sandpiper and the Semipalmated Sandpipers can be reached at the following link: http://www.pbase.com/godwit/recent_photos/


We hope you all enjoy these latest photos!


Sincerely,

Ruth and Patrick Sullivan
Fircrest,WA
godwit513 at msn.com