I was down on Park Point before the sun rose this morning. At first birding was slow, but when the golden orb’s rays finally began to provide some warmth the birds appeared. Apparently the songbirds had spent the night deep in some thick cedar trees. I suspect the branches kept them both warmer and shielded from the strong SW wind.

Most of the song birds did not venture far from the cedars. The SW wind made migration unwise, and the Merlin which was hanging around made a decision to forage near heavy cover a life extending wise decision.

Merlin in search of songbirds

Yellow-Rumped Warbler giving a Bronx cheer to Mr. Merlin

Hermit Thrush

Almost one year ago from today I started off a post in this manner …

Will the real American Golden Plover please stand up?!

Some of us are old enough to remember the TV show, To Tell The Truth! In this show, a panel of celebrities asked three guests questions in an attempt to determine who was the real guest, and who were impostors. Sometimes identifying shorebirds feels a bit like an episode of this game show. Shorebirds have many different plumage patterns, which vary by the season of the year, and whether a bird is a male, female, breeding male, breeding female or an immature bird.

Well … ID’ing shorebirds and specifically the difference between American Golden and Black Bellied Plovers is very, very tough. I did manage to come up with a correct ID for all the birds featured in this post, but I checked my work using both of these two tools:

• Merlin Bird ID (by bird features or your own image)
• This pdf booklet from the Migratory Shorebird Project.

I assume most of my readers have similar problems with Shorebird identification. Hope these two resources help.

Ruddy Turnstones

Sanderlings

American Golden Plovers

And some non shorebirds that wanted in on the post. Images also taken out on Minnesota Point!

Common Crow

Palm Warbler