Monday, July 6, 2015

Plovers and Sandpipers

I hiked a section of the beach today and got this interesting photo of two very different birds feeding together at the same time, a Western Snowy Plover in the background and a Western Sandpiper in the foreground.  The plover is the bird we have been charged to help protect. They stay here year around and in fact breed and raise their young here.  The Western Sandpiper is a migratory species, passing by here in the Spring to their breeding grounds in the northern tundra, and then returning back in the fall to winter as far away as South America. The Western Snowy Plover I see in small numbers, today I saw eleven.  The Western Sandpipers I estimate at a ratio of 40 to 1, meaning I saw around 400.

2 comments:

  1. Good close up of the Plover!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Great shot to have the two species side by side. Enjoy following you summer!

    ReplyDelete