Subject: [Tweeters] Baby shorebirds!
Date: Jun 27 17:53:11 2011
From: Michael Donahue - bfalbatross at gmail.com


Shorebirding in Washington isn?t restricted to migration. Nine species breed
in the state and in the short gap between spring migration and the trickle
of fall migration that starts in late June, shorebirding can mean seeing
baby shorebirds.



With this in mind, I went to eastern Washington the last two weekends to
look for baby shorebirds, first with Alan Knue and then with Curtis and
Bobby Pearson.



We found avocet and stilt chicks, stilt fledglings, and four little bobbing
puffballs of Spotted Sandpipers. These were all at sewage ponds along I-90,
west of the Dodson Road exit. (To get to the ponds, exit at Dodson Road and
take S. Frontage road west for 2.5 miles.) I?d hoped to run into Wilson?s
Phalaropes with chicks but didn?t have any luck there or at the county line
ponds. I think these shorebirds chicks should be referred to as:



Stilt-itos (a nod to their scientific name)
Piperlets

Avo-cettes


Good birding!

Mike Donahue
Seattle
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