A Sandpiper, but Which One?

 

I have never been good with shore birds.  Part of that is because I don’t see them often, but also they are very confusing.

I photographed this one recently, and have been trying to figure it out.  I am leaning toward the Solitary Sandpiper (Tringa solitaria), but that diagnosis depends on the legs being green, and they look more yellow-grey in this picture.  The Solitary Sandpiper is not native to this area, but it could have been passing through in spring migration.

On purely a name basis, I think that it would be nice if it were a Semipalmated Sandpiper (Calidris pusilla), because “semipalmated” sounds cool.

As far as I know, there is no Fully Palmated Sandpiper. 

Random Floating Glove

 

A Mourning Dove Among Branches

 

Signs

 

Trees and Clouds Reflected in the Water

 

Some Temporal Issues from the Last Post

I noticed, after posting my last entry, which closed out 2025, that the blog had reached a total of 365 posts.  That would be a pretty good number if I had been blogging for a year, but in reality I started the blog in 2010. 

I also wrote that the final episode of Newhart had aired in the Eighties, though the actual air date was May 21, 1990, which most people would consider the Nineties.  One can make the mathematical argument that, since there was no “year zero” (the calendar goes directly from 1 BC to AD 1) that first decade of the AD time period was 1-10, and by the same principle “the Eighties” would actually be 1981-1990.  I remember some people making that same argument back when everyone assumed that the new millennium would begin in 2000.  However, I think that it is best not to attempt that argument, and rather to save my strength for arguing the superiority of meteorological winter to astronomical winter.