I earlier posted that the STSA was still being
seen at Eide Road. It was done "on the spot"
quickly by phone from someone else's car. I wanted
to get the message out right then so that anyone
interested would know it was still there (for the
6th day and see further below). I used the
banding code using the abbreviation because it was
easier and quicker. Interestingly I got a half
dozen offline emails pretty soon after my post.
Half were from birders appreciating the update and
asking for further directions and half were from
birders who had no idea what an STSA was. I was
pleased to get the former and responded to help.
Tweeters is a wonderful resource for the community
to share information and I strongly support the
requirement that email addresses be included for
all posters.

It was also good to get the emails on the use of
abbreviations instead of the full species name.
It reminded me that tweeters reaches a broad and
diverse audience and I could have given more
thought to that in posting using just the banding
code. In fairness anyone reading tweeters could
have seen the several recent naming a Stilt
Sandpiper at Eide Road and figured it out but that
might be easy to say and not so easy for a new
birder especially to do or if those earlier
messages were not seen. I myself generally do not
like or use the banding codes. Some are easy to
figure out but some are
well...esoteric...especially when not just the
straight forward two letters of each of the two
words in the species name when that would lead to
duplication. It is FAR more useful to use the
whole species name to avoid any confusion or
outright lack of useful information. I will avoid
the codes (alone) in the future and encourage
others to do so as well.

The observation on this welcomed rarity is that
what I have called the cast of supporting
characters has changed every day. Some days the
other shorebirds have been primarily Greater
Yellowlegs while on others like today (and August
7 when I first saw it) it has been Lesser
Yellowlegs. Today there were at least 35 of the
latter. Some days there have been dowitchers and
other days none. On the 7th it was closely
associating with a Red Necked Phalarope which was
absent today. Some days many peeps and other days
few if any. Migration being on it is not
surprising that the variety appears at the Eide
Road ponds. But especially since it is migration
time, it is interesting to me that these other
birds move on and this bird stays. Where do the
others go and why does not this guy (or gal) join
them instead of returning? Why is it here in the
first place? More reasons to enjoy our feathered
friends.

--
Blair Bernson
Edmonds