[obol] Florence and Fern Ridge birds Sunday, Skinner Butte birds Monday

[Jeff Gilligan]

In regard to the curve-billed phalarope: A presentation at Portland Birders'
Night this last spring was about this apparently increasing phenomenon in
various birds,particularly in raptors.  The cause is not known.  One theory
is that it is from a virus.  The present showed photos of an old specimen of
Ivory-billed Woodpecker with a long, curved bill.


On 9/4/06 12:13 PM, "DAVID IRONS" <llsdirons at msn.com> wrote:

> Yesterday, David Fix, Jennifer Brown, Diane Pettey and I birded the Florence
> area.  We spent most of our time doing seawatches and shorebirding.  We
> relocated the Reeve along the "Dotteral Dike" halfway out the South Jetty
> Rd.  The other highlight of our day was a very bizarre curve-billed
> Red-necked Phalarope that was in the small tidal pool at the base of the
> North Jetty (pullout at the bottom of the hill as you start out the road).
> There were about 150 Red-necked Phalaropes and 300+ peeps along the beach
> there at high tide.  We also had a single Common Tern there.
> 
> I spotted the phalarope as it bathed in deeper water out from the beach.  It
> had a bill that was at least 30% longer than an of the other phalaropes.
> The basal half was thicker than a typical phalarope and then the bird had
> obvious down curve to the outer half of the bill.  Diane Pettey took several
> pics of this bird, one of which revealed a noticeable bulge at the point
> where the bill started curving downward.  The head pattern on this bird was
> also quite strange.  It was very mottled and lacked the typcial dark cap,
> dark auricular, white supercilium pattern of a juv. Red-necked Phalarope.
> The bill was virtually identical to that of a Curlew Sandpiper, but every
> thing else about this bird (aside from bill and head pattern) was normal for
> a Red-necked Phalarope.  I have a jpg. of this bird if anyone wants to see
> it.  Unfortunately, the angle does not fully show the bill curvature, but it
> does show the head well.
> 
> Other birds of interest:
> 
> Sooty Shearwater -- steady stream north past Heceta Beach and the North
> Jetty (probably 200 total)
> Black-bellied Plover -- 1 basic plumaged adult at Crab Docks
> Semipalmated Plover -- 60+ (at Crab Docks and Heceta Beach at Driftwood
> Shores Motel)
> Marbled Godwit -- 1 Heceta Beach
> Whimbrel -- 17 (one flock of South Jetty)
> Wandering Tattler -- 2 (North Jetty)
> Ruddy Turnstone -- 1 (North Jetty)
> Black Turnstone -- 3 (North Jetty)
> Western Sandpiper -- 600 total (Heceta Beach, North Jetty, Crab Docks and
> Dotteral Dike)
> Least Sandpiper -- 50 (same sites as Westerns)
> Rhinoceros Auklet -- 1 off Heceta Beach
> Cassin's Auklets -- 2 off Heceta Beach
> Marbled Murrelet -- 8 off Heceta Beach
> 
> On the way home we stopped at Royal Ave to look for the Buff-breasted
> Sandpiper.  We easily relocated it at Redhead Pond.  Several other birds
> came and went while we were there.  We also had both Yellowlegs, a flock of
> about  12 Dowitchers, a few peeps, heard two Pectoral Sandpipers, and saw
> two Virginia Rails.
> 
> This morning, Fix, Brown and I went to Skinner Butte to look for migrant
> passerines.  We had the following migrants:
> 
> Yellow Warbler -- 1
> Townsend's Warbler -- 5+
> Black-throated Gray Warbler -- 4+
> Wilson's Warbler -- 1
> Western Tanager -- 2
> 
> Dave Irons
> Eugene, OR
> 
> 
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