Birding Report August 15

Here’s a note from Kristen Vale who led the August 15th 3rd Saturday Outing:

I had a lovely morning with everyone yesterday! The attendance count was 15.

Richard, thank you so much for hosting and for being my wingman 😉 You were such a great support and I enjoy birding with you.

Your photos were super helpful! For the peep, I was able to confirm they were juvenile western sandpipers (at least the one in your photos). The contrasting rufous-edged upper scapulars and slightly longer bill (compared to the semipalmated sandpiper) were distinct in your photos. Semipalmated’s can have some buffy on their upper scapulars, but these were contrasting enough to call it a western. My eyes were crossed after looking at all my ID guides and then some, ha. But it’s so encouraging to ID juveniles of any species!

For the flycatcher, you got great ID makings of their drab brownish wing-bars to call it a willow flycatcher. Flipping through my Sibley’s guide, that’s the species I kept going back to. Then I did some eBird searching and a few people saw one at the same location yesterday, including Rachael Friese.

After all that, we saw at least 36 species yesterday. There might have been a couple more that could have been gleaned or that I missed. But I’d say that’s pretty good. Here is my checklist: https://ebird.org/checklist/S383690676