Subject: [Tweeters] Shorebird flock ID
Date: Dec 21 09:21:27 2015
From: Joshua Glant - josh.n.glant at gmail.com


Good morning Helen,

In King County, the two most likely shorebird species to find on breakwaters are Dunlin or Sanderling, and your birds were almost definitely one or both of those species. Once at Alki, I saw one dunlin with fifty sanderlings! From this distance, I'm not sure what tips to offer in terms of ID, except that Dunlin in my experience have a slightly darker and almost more "purplish" shade of gray.

Good birding, Joshua Glant

Mercer Island, WA

Josh(dot)n(dot)glant(at)gmail(dot)com

> On Dec 21, 2015, at 8:47 AM, "helen.gilbert at juno.com" <helen.gilbert at juno.com> wrote:
>
> Hi - Any guesses on the identity of a large flock of shorebirds -- perhaps 200 -- on the rock breakwater outside Shilshole Marina? Henry Noble and I saw them from the Daybreak Star Center lookout yesterday. But they were so far that even with the scope we could only see that they had dark backs and white fronts that flashed when they flew back and forth in a tight formation, then landed again on the rocks. There was nothing to give us a sense of size.
>
> Helen Gilbert
> Seattle
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