I've decided to study and know the birds I photograph. My 7D croaked yesterday, 1.5 months before warranty expires, and is on its way to Irvine, CA. In the meantime I figure I do some overdue homework and learn to ID these beauties.
I photographed this one near Fort Myers while I was visiting my bro three weeks ago.
Hi Enrique- Superb image! This bird has the general look of a worn, juvenile Sanderling, and the lack of a hind-toe is diagnostic for this species. Adult Sanderlings at this time of year have a "black and white" look about them so the warm buff tones on this bird make me think it's a juvenile.
John, I agree with the ID but I think the mix of fresh flight feathers and some fresh coverts with lots of worn covert feathers, including some worn black feathers, point to an adult for a bird photographed in September. I'd expect any juvenile to look pretty fresh overall at this time of year.
Hi Paul- I did notice how worn this individual was but as mentioned was struck by the buffiness of the plumage. Perhaps this is a bit of an artefact from the White Balance used in the image (maybe it's a bit warmer than it should be?).
I converted the RAW file "as shot" and during the work flow in PS I moved the saturation slider to 5 or 6. That is all. It was taken early morning hours. I'll see if I can find another photo of it. Or will posting the original as shot help?
The plumage on this bird is interesting. Most of the feathers on the upperparts (the dull gray ones with the narrrow black along the shaft) are basic (winter) plumage feathers. Oddly, some are quite worn and frayed at the tip, while others a clearly fresh. As for the dark feathers on the back and scapulars, they could be really worn adult alternate feathers, but they look more like juvenile feathers to me, which really adds to confusion. Either way, the two ages of basic feathers suggest to me that this bird at some point in the last year did not complete a molt thus still has many basic covert feathers from a year ago. Not often that I'm this baffled by shorebird's plumage.
John said... "Perhaps this is a bit of an artefact from the White Balance used in the image (maybe it's a bit warmer than it should be?). "
At this point in my bird photography obsession (i.e. still short of the two year mark), I'm much more comfortable discussing feather wear than photo artifacts! But having seen Sanderlings on a lot of different colored backgrounds at all times of the day, I don't think this photo looks an all off for a winter adult.
I just took some time to take a close look at the pattern of the fresh juvenile feathers. The black seems to be very triangular with white up the sides and at the tip. I would expect the result of worn pale feathering to be ragged triangular black feathers (hope that makes sense), but Enrique's bird looks like it has mostly black feathers with just worn ends. This seems to be more consistent with the black on adult birds in photos I checked out.
In respect to the worn gray feathers, Sanderlings that migrate through New Jersey in the spring are all over the map in plumage. I doubt that all of them eventually end up looking drop dead spiffy (excuse the technical ornithological term) by June. This seems fairly common in some shorebirds, but I don't know if it's related to age, sex, health, fat stored, or any combo of them. I'm thinking that this bird may simply be molting from a less than great spring coat to it's winter coat.
Feel free to agree with or eviscerate any part of the above.
Sanderling?
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