[obol] Sauvie Island Bird Help--Black Bellied Plover

[John Gatchet]

Lyn:

I birded Sauvie Island and Rentenaar Road starting at 1:30 pm on the
31st and had a Black-bellied Plover in striking breeding plumage.  That
is likely the bird that you saw.

In a separate post I will cover the birds from that area.

John F. Gatchet
Gresham, OR

-----Original Message-----
From: obol-bounces at oregonbirdwatch.org
[mailto:obol-bounces at oregonbirdwatch.org] On Behalf Of Lyn Topinka
Sent: Sunday, June 01, 2008 7:49 AM
To: obol at oregonbirdwatch.org
Cc: tweeters at u.washington.edu
Subject: [obol] Need Sauvie Island Bird Help


hi groups ...

yesterday (May 31) a friend and I were touring around Sauvie Island
looking for birds ... went down Rentenaar Road to see if we could find
the Phalarope that Wink Gross mentioned on friday ... at what we
"assumed" was Wink's "shorebird flats"  (just before turnaround/parking
at end of road) we stopped to watch ... nice spot to sit for a while ...
the "flats" had a female Mallard, a pair of Northern Shovelers, and a
pair of Blue-winged Teals ... we also saw a Heron, Egret, Killdeer,
Red-winged, and lots of brown tweety thngs ... overhead we watched
Cowbirds beating up on a Red-tailed Hawk, an Osprey flew by, plus lots
of Eagles ...

our "interesting bird of the day" however was a Plover  (we are
assuming) down on the flats ... it wasn't close to the road and
virtually impossible to see without binocs ... we only had 8 power
binocs as we both stupidly left our scopes at home, each thinking the
other one had packed theirs ... what we saw in the sunlight was
basically a white head and back, with a hint of grey in the back ... 
the face, breast, and tummy were solid black ... from our distance and
with the bright sunlight it looked like a black and white bird ...

my question --- if someone else sees this bird can you please let me
know what variety it was ??? ... from the books I would guess
Black-bellied, mainly because it has the lightest head which from our
distance would wash out into white in the sunlight ... the other Plovers
in the books appear to have much darker heads ...

and, if it turns out not to be a Plover, by all means let me know that
too !!!!!!!!!!!! ...

thanks all,
Lyn



Lyn Topinka
http://EnglishRiverWebsite.com
http://ColumbiaRiverImages.com
http://RidgefieldBirds.com

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