In search of shorebird photos with Danielle

Danielle thought being up high would allow her to spot birds (for me) better.

For the past two weeks I've checked the flooded Bartlet Lake Road or read updates about the shorebirds on Facebook almost daily. On Monday this week I even took off my shoes and walked through the water to check the other side of the road. With clear skies forecasted I planned on taking photos of the reported birds this morning after dropping Michaela off at school.

For some reason, Danielle woke up early this morning.  She would not snuggle in bed with Christine nor fall back asleep, but that is not surprising as she hasn't done either lately with the earlier sunrise. Instead Danielle got Christine out of bed and wanted to drop off  Michaela.  Danielle has attended school four days a week the past year, with Thursday being her day off so I knew there was no hurry once we dropped Michaela off. Based on last week's adventure when Danielle liked a cattle egret I figured she  would be game for birding this morning.

To my surprise, the road was open this morning and we were able to drive to the boat landing.  Only a handful of shorebirds remained, which was dramatically less than Monday wen the picture below was taken. I suspect traffic on this narrow road will push these little birds elsewhere in the near future.

Mixed flock of sandpipers (peeps).

Danielle was a trooper and spent the first half hour sitting on my lap watching Dunlin and taking pictures.  With limited assistance she looked through the viewfinder, put the focus area on the birds, and snapped decent photos.  She started to get cold however and we walked back to the car.  After talking Christine into taking the camera from us and I put Danielle on my shoulders and we went searching for the small flock to show "mom" what we found. We spent almost another hour exploring the snails, birds, and air bubbles trapped in the asphalt before heading home. After transferring the photos to the computer I'm glad we talked Christine into taking photos, as she got awesome photos of a handful of species (at least in my opinion).

Enjoy the photos below. All of the large photos are Christine's from this morning, with a few of the smaller thumbnails being mine or from Monday's wet foot day. Flickr just recently changed their storage allowance.  I'm using Flickr's links of full-sized photos on this blog for the first time.  I hope it works.

Dunlin

White-rumped Sandpiper

Least Sandpiper
 

Semipalmated Sandpiper
  

I am not sure if the bottom right photo in the semipalmated Sandpiper group is accurately identified. I originally identified this bird as a white-rumped sandpiper based on the narrower body and fine streaking along the chest and sides (which was corroborated by two local birders), but after reviewing the 700 photos today and looking through the O'Brien Shorebird field guide I'm leaning toward semipalmated Sandpiper.

I spent a couple of days with excellent birders the past week, and the days were a ton of fun with all the birds seen and heard. Their easy going personalities were quite enjoyable and I thoroughly enjoyed learning from them in the field. I was reminded during these forays that there is always more to learn. I'm hoping a shorebird expert can give me the nuances of shorebird plumages on this identification.

Yellow-headed Blackbird