More Walpatich Shorebirds - 25 Jul 2024
I arrived at the Mouillee Creek parking lot at 8:45 am under partly sunny skies, mild temps (72F) and a light breeze (5-10 mph from the SW). Looping around to the north end of the Walpatich Unit I looked for shorebirds that seem to have thinned in the past two days. Along the west shoreline I kept flushing (3) Green Herons from the marsh but was too slow to catch them flying across the creek into the trees to my left. Only a couple Pectoral Sandpipers and Least Sandpipers were among the half-dozen Killdeer along the north side of the Walpatich. It wasn't until I headed over to the east dike that I came upon a couple of Pectoral Sandpipers close enough to digiscope. A Stilt Sandpiper appeared nearby and offered up some nice digiscoped images from about 30' away. Here is a short video of the bird foraging. Toward the middle of the Unit I spotted several Short-billed Dowitchers and this Wilson's Snipe . Returning to the nearby shorebirds another Pectoral Sandpiper
