Hi all,
I have a checklist that's been giving me headaches for almost two months - too much heat glare, too many small waders... so I've decided to get rid of it and move on :) I would be grateful for any opinion you can provide on the photos below (even if you think the photo is too bad for id).
1. sand plover: lesser vs greater. I've looked at these until I got dizzy :)
I think greater:
I think lesser:
2. temmink's stint? or some kind of sandpiper? are the photos to bad to tell?
3. little stint? almost sure of pics 3 and 4, but it's more orange than i've usually seen, so I want to double check.
I changed my mind again about pic 2, now i think curlew sandpiper...
4. dunlin? or curlew sandpiper?
5. curlew? the bill seems a little short...
thanks!
Most of your ID attempts are correct or pretty close. The first two sandplovers are indeed Greater & Lesser - Greater with the longer bill & greenish legs, Lesser shorter-billed and darker legs.
Number 4 is a Curlew Sand - long thigh, hint of a supercilium and note how the bill tapers evenly to a fine tip, unlike the blunter tip of Dunlin.
5 is trickier. It could be a Whimbrel, it appears to have a slight kink at the end of the bill, but I can't 100% rule out a juvenile Curlew from the quality of this image.
Identifying species from heavy crops or heat-haze affected images is often subjective and not always subjective. Starting out, you may find it better to focus your attention on birds that are close enough to study to learn their differences rather than worrying about birds that are specks or blurs. Watch how they feed & behave - behaviour often gets overlooked when you're looking through a viewfinder. Once you have a few of the commoner species sorted, a lot of these species will become easier.
Thanks a lot Mark, this is very helpful! Especially since I could not find comparative descriptions (of, for example, Dunlin vs Curlew Sand vs Broad billed sand). I do have a wader guide book on my reading list, hoping that will also help.
I’ll follow your advice and focus more on behavior of closer birds than shape of distant ones. So far I was going for list completion as a priority - sorry that led me to ask for a lot of help.
Cheers,