[obol] Newport South Jetty Dowitcher, etc

[Cindy Ashy]

Newport South Jetty today:

Late morning, on an Audubon field trip led by Dick
Demarest, we found a dowitcher (I want to turn it into
a juvenile Long-billed Dowitcher but I'm not sure -
Dick took pictures) in the grassy area by the gull
puddle. It allowed us to get quite close to it. Seemed
like such an odd place to find a dowitcher. Around
5:45pm, I went back to this area and relocated the
dowitcher, feeding very actively in the grassy area
just a little west from where we first found it. It
was "stitching" and somehow driving its beak part way
into the ground which was quite hard and eating
something yellowish but I couldn't figure out what. At
one point, a car engine right next to it scared it and
I got a glimpse of it in flight but not enough detail
to help distinguish between a long-billed and a
short-billed. Do others think this is an odd place to
find a dowitcher?

We also saw a beautiful perfect specimen Ring-billed
Gull in the gull puddle gull wad along with a bunch of
California Gulls and all the usual pink-legged
varieties.

Also, at 5:30, I found approximately 115 Brown
Pelicans densely packed on the first finger of the
jetty. I've never seen so many there....it was quite a
sight!

There was a White-fronted Goose wandering around.

Cindy Ashy


       
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