{"id":9182,"date":"2018-05-21T20:15:19","date_gmt":"2018-05-21T20:15:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/eontbird.ca\/?p=9182"},"modified":"2018-05-21T20:51:48","modified_gmt":"2018-05-21T20:51:48","slug":"breeding-plumage-shorebirds-a-surprising-achilles-heel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eontbird.ca\/?p=9182","title":{"rendered":"Shorebirds in breeding plumage: an Achilles heel!?"},"content":{"rendered":"

I will start by saying that I absolutely love birding. Perhaps what I love most about it is that there is no ceiling to the limit of knowledge one can acquire\u00a0throughout one’s lifetime.\u00a0 I will forever be a student of bird identification, and this mindset keeps me wide open to receiving feedback; if you’re young and hungry and happen to be reading this…trust me, it’s the way to go as you grow as a birder! I have recently come to realize that I have a new identification weakness: shorebirds in breeding garb. My first recollection of becoming aware of this weakness is of a visit to Hillman Marsh last May. I was standing in the shorebird shelter, chatting with clients, when I overheard a birder, I believe his name is Bill Lamond, talking to a fellow birder while viewing birds through his scope. “Semipalmated Sandpiper.” I traced his trajectory to the bird and centred it in my scope view, thinking “that’s\u00a0<\/em>a Semipalm..? Oh, wait, ya ya.” I came to realize that it was my lifer breeding-plumage Semipalmated Sandpiper! Here I was, leading tours for a living and I had very limited experience with breeding-plumage shorebirds. In 2012, every\u00a0<\/em>bird was new and IDs were overwhelming while birding in Manitoba for the breeding bird atlas. In 2013, I skipped spring shorebirds and focused on forest birds in prep for a summer job. In 2014,\u00a0I was hired as a field biologist in the Okanagan Valley and missed spring shorebird season. In 2015, I began to lead tours locally, in Ottawa,\u00a0where the spring shorebird scene is limited;\u00a0I recall seeing very few! In 2016, I again lead tours as well as worked retail, having no experience with shorebirds in the spring. In 2017, I had my first real taste of spring shorebirds, birding at Hillman Marsh! Once I left Pelee,\u00a0that was it; no more shorebirds to study. Fast-forward to 2018, where I had a similar dilemma, albeit by 2018 my\u00a0base skill set\u00a0<\/em>had risen quite a bit (even over my spring 2017 “start point”) so my ID weaknesses gave me less concern.<\/p>\n

Hi my name is Jon and I have an ID problem<\/strong><\/p>\n

It all began in late March when a client walked up and showed me an image of a shorebird through his viewfinder. “Lesser Yellowlegs, wow, that’s early!” I had failed to note\u00a0plumage\u00a0<\/em>details and instead focused on\u00a0perceived\u00a0<\/em>GISS, etc. The client eBirded his sighting and our regional eBird reviewer caught the mis-ID; it was a Greater Yellowlegs. When I heard-word about the mis-ID, I sat down at my study and took a look at the photo of the bird on my work laptop; indeed it was a Greater! What I couldn’t shake was the fact that I didn’t look for, or discern, plumage details (such as the heavily-barred flanks to a Greater) while looking at the photo in the viewfinder. Show me a blurry photo of a sparrow’s “face” as its buried in cover and I’ll quickly have an answer on the tip of my tongue. It will likely only take a matter of seconds before an impression is hot and ready out of the oven. So, what’s up with this apparent “blind spot” with breeding shorebirds?<\/p>\n

Eastern (griseus<\/em>) Short-billed Dowitcher!…erm, not so fast wise guy<\/strong><\/p>\n

While birding at Pelee, I had to call back only three birds. All three mistakes occurred during my final day of tours when my mind was finally beginning to show some wear and tear. I caught the mis-IDs after calling them out for the group and corrected myself. I was proud of the level of focus I had maintained throughout the three tours. *pats own back*. Upon arriving home, however, I found out about an additional\u00a0mis-ID; this one being more permanent and more public. I had tagged Kevin McLaughlin in a Facebook post; I had found an Eastern Short-billed Dowitcher…except, I hadn’t! It would have been a lifer breeding-plumage Eastern bird, and I figured I had studied it well enough to say, but it wasn’t quite right. Turns out it was likely a first summer “Inland” (hendersoni<\/em>) Short-billed and Kevin provided his usual helpful and incisive analysis. My trouble is I didn’t\u00a0see\u00a0<\/em>some of the rather obvious telltale field marks, as described by Kevin, while in the field. The bird was a mere 15 meters away and was lovingly gazed upon through my scope view. I didn’t have certain telltale field marks to tick off on my mental checklist at the time. At any rate, I certainly do now, thanks to Kevin \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

The takeaway<\/strong><\/p>\n

As strange as this may sound, especially since I am a professional birder, I feel excited at the time of this writing as I embrace the realization that I am still quite green in some areas. I am excited that I get to continue learning alongside clients as I am paid to do what I love to do. Does\u00a0any of the above information about my apparent weakness with breeding shorebirds change my status as being a “good” birder? Does it make me any less of a guide? Nope. I continue to be careful, I continue to be precise, I continue to study birds carefully, I continue to have a good memory for detail, and I continue to get a little better each year as I continue to gain field experience. Is this denial? Is my confidence shaken, even if only just a bit? Nuh-uh, nadda. Onwards and upwards, like a flock of well-fed migrant Eastern (griseus<\/em>) Short-billed Dowitchers exiting a lagoon cell!<\/p>\n

Good birding,<\/p>\n

Jon<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I will start by saying that I absolutely love birding. Perhaps what I love most about it is that there is no ceiling to the limit of knowledge one can acquire\u00a0throughout one’s lifetime.\u00a0 I will forever be a student of bird identification, and this mindset keeps me wide open to receiving feedback;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9182","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eontbird.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9182","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eontbird.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eontbird.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eontbird.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eontbird.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9182"}],"version-history":[{"count":21,"href":"https:\/\/eontbird.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9182\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9204,"href":"https:\/\/eontbird.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9182\/revisions\/9204"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eontbird.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9182"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eontbird.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9182"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eontbird.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9182"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}