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Birding Brevard: More Tips on Hard-to-Identify Birds

By Dave Freeland

A couple of issues ago, I unlocked the keys to some bird identifications that seasoned birders know but the field guides don't cover. Several readers commented how useful those tips were, so I thought IÕd unlock a few more.

Some of these tips are covered in one field guide or another, but often seem to go unnoticed by the typical, everyday birder. I hope these tips prove useful to you.

THE PEEP PIPERS

Our small sandpipers, commonly known as peep, confuse even the experts at times. The biggest problem lies in Semipalmated Sandpiper, an abundant bird in May and the July-October migration periods, and how it differs from Western Sandpiper, primarily a colder-months denizen of Florida. Both have dark bills and legs, and the field guides concentrate on the WesternÕs drooping bill to separate it from Semipalmated.

The fact is (and this wasn't really known until the early 1970s) that one common subspecies of Western Sandpiper has a straight, not-too-droopy bill and looks for all the world like Semipalmated Sandpiper. Until a scientist studied museum specimens in 1973 and reported his findings, hundreds of museum skins were mislabeled as Semipalmated Sandpipers when, in fact, they were Westerns.

Suddenly, Christmas Count records of Semipals were subject to deeper scrutiny. They were probably all Westerns, not Semipals. Our Cocoa CBC had been reporting Semipals in the thousands some years. Those records may as well be scrubbed clean.

Today, only well photographed and documented reports of Semipalmated Sandpiper in winter are counted anywhere in North America, and these accurate IDs are few and far between. The first migrant Semipals arrive in North America in mid-April, some stray into June, and the fall migration begins at the tail end of June and straggles into October. By then, the Westerns have flooded the mudflats and are the dominant black-legged peep, most achieving reddish scapulars and crowns by late April.

The lesson? Don't make the error of reporting Semipalmated Sandpipers after October.

(Continued in next month's Limpkin)