Hey Tweets,
Steve Caldwell and I spent three hours today waiting to see the Wood Sandpiper with a number of other birders, including Curtis and Bobby Pearson. Several flocks of Dunlin flew around the ponds without landing, frustrating everyone. Just as we were about to leave, at 1 pm, a lone, medium to largish sandpiper flew over the ponds, providing quite good looks from below, as the bird circled the ponds three or four times. It gave perhaps five or six single note flight calls, which I characterize as a fairly high pitched, somewhat drawn-out "cheef", totally unlike either of the Yellow-leg calls. Steve and I assessed its size as slightly but noticably smaller and with somewhat shorter wings than Lesser yellow-legs, and with rather light underwings. The vent of the bird was dirty white with diffuse buffy flanks. The bill was shorter and slightly more compact than that of a Lesser yellow-legs. The legs, dull greenish-yellow, extended perhaps an inch beyond the narrowly barred tail. The white rump did not extend up the back beyond the base of the wings. These field marks led us to believe that this was the Wood Sandpiper. Unfortunately, the bird did not land.
Brien Meilleur
Lake Forest Park, WA
brienm at live.com