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How reading Kenn Kaufman's "ID Tips" made me a better birdwatcherFrom the editor -- August 2008
Published:
June 20, 2008 The earth underfoot was surprisingly soft. It was early in the morning on a Saturday in mid-May, and for the time being, not another soul was in the park. It was just me and the rising sun and the birds.
Back in the office, unfinished editing preyed at my conscience. Magazine pages were awaiting final approval, Kenn Kaufman's "I.D. Tips" among them. But paper Spotted Sandpipers would keep until Monday, I decided. I was searching for the real McCoys.
Cradling my binoculars, I ducked under branches hanging low over a path through a thicket. On the far side was a lagoon. The last time I visited, bending down and rising again on my way through, a pair of Blue-winged Teal were the first birds I saw. Another time, it was an Eared Grebe. Would there be a similar surprise this morning?
At first, the answer appeared to be no. Scanning the pond's far bank, I beheld a mirror-like body of water and not one bird. But then a bit of motion, much closer than where I was looking, drew my attention, something on a partially submerged log. Something gray. Something bobbing up and down. A sandpiper.
Immediately I thought of Kenn's article. But this bird lacked spots, I noted, and had a complete eye-ring, and where was the Spotted's characteristic white shoulder mark? I couldn't see it. The bobbing seemed wrong, too: Instead of lowering and raising its rear end, the bird was twitching its entire body, head and all.
And then it dawned on me: My reading of the bird's field marks and behavior was mirroring my reading of Kenn's article, which in an instant changed from work waiting to be done to something akin to prophecy.
What was the sandpiper? You can see a photo of it, or a bird that looks just about identical to it, here. Another good photo is at the bottom of page 45 of the August 2008 issue of Birder's World magazine.
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