Birding-Aus Digest, Vol 13, Issue 12

“voice can be used as a very reliable and easy field mark” This is certainly true in the US where you typically see them in flocks during migration. Not so useful when I saw the bird in SA several years ago, when there was one dowitcher among hundreds of other noisy waders. ID then becomes very challenging. Paul Coddington On 13 Nov 2014, at 3:30 am, birding-aus-request@birding-aus.org wrote: > Date: Wed, 12 Nov 2014 14:58:10 +1100 > From: “cgregory123 .” <cgregory123@gmail.com> > To: birdingaus mailing list <birding-aus@birding-aus.org> > Subject: Re: [Birding-Aus] Long-billed Dowitcher on Lake Tutchewop > Message-ID: > <CACQfRvy6y-DRFNcDdjL4at44Umu-7OrpT87mGpZTgWJdEhuQoA@mail.gmail.com> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 > > Here is an interesting article on the difficulty of distinguishing between > the Long and Short-billed Dowitcher species and a guide on to how to go > about it in the field. > > http://www.surfbirds.com/ID%20Articles/dowitchers1005/dowitchers.html > > I’ve picked out a couple of points the authors make. > > “To make matters worse, many birders, including seasoned birders, rely on > habitat preference as a “field mark”. Not only is this an useless field > mark during migration when both species occur side-by-side and in habitats > that they are not “expected” to be in, but it also masks any information > regarding local movements of dowitchers between habitats.” > > “One difference, as pointed out by Putnam (2005), is that Long-billeds molt > their primaries during transit whereas Short-billeds wait until they arrive > at their wintering grounds to molt their primaries.” > > “The best field mark for distinguishing the two dowitcher species is voice. > Short-billed gives a “call *tututu*, a staccato series of low, musical > notes a bit faster than but similar to those of a Lesser Yellowlegs” > (Paulson, 1993). Long-billed typically gives a higher pitched *keek* or > *peep* call often repeated several to numerous times in rapid succession. > The difference in voice is regarded as a nearly fail-proof field mark, and > over the course of our studies.” > > Cheers > Chris Gregory