Date: Fri, 5 Dec 2003 11:12:30 -0500 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Elliot Kirschbaum Subject: Re: Speaking of late birds - godwit at Blackwater Comments: cc: "Marshall J. Iliff" In-Reply-To: <1c2.128bc6a0.2cffc558@aol.com> Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit on 12/3/03 6:01 PM, Marshall Iliff at Miliff@AOL.COM wrote: > Possibly this was the same godwit that Harry himself saw 2 weeks or > more ago, but while Hudsonians are regular into early November, they > get decidedly scarce thereafter. By early December we should be > checking Hudsonians VERY carefully, because Black-tailed Godwit has > turned up in winter in North Carolina, Prince Edward Island, and other > East Coast areas. They are easily identified by > the gleaming white (versus blackish) underwing and willet0like wingstripe > (versus very narrow wingstripe on Hudsonian). I was on the trip led by Harry two weeks ago (November 16). I would not have called the bird anything had Harry not called our attention to it, and even then I would not have ventured an identification because I am not familiar with godwits in flight, but the one field mark that I carried away with me to check later was what appeared to me to be, as you say, a willet-like wing stripe. Later, at home I looked at the godwits on Plate 48 of Shorebirds by Hayman, et. al. I thought that the wing stripe on Black-tailed Godwit looked like what I had seen on the bird, but given my lack of familiarity with godwits in flight and my lack of knowledge of Black-tailed Godwit observations on the east coast, I assumed that Harry's identification was the correct one, and that perhaps I had seen the white on the under-wing shown in Hudsonian Godwit drawing 124i. Your post, Marshall, has made me consider the identification again and, as I really think that I was looking at the upper side of the wing rather than the under side, I hope someone has a chance to heed your advice and look closely at this bird if seen again. Elliot Kirschbaum Baltimore, MD USA ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================