Short-billed Dowitchers

Grimsby Wetlands, Grimsby, ON , August 4, 2020.  This may end up being more of a photo-essay than a day-in-the-life-of-a-birder because todays birds, Short-billed Dowitchers are so photogenic, in the right light anyway. It was not the right light this morning, a day’s rain had sent the sun packing, it was soft, misty and things squelched, the laundry had not yet dried.

I wanted to see if there had been any change in the cast of characters at this wetland; there had. A Semi-palmated Plover and a Pectoral Sandpiper were both new arrivals and two Short-billed Dowitchers too. Numbers had thinned a bit but I enjoyed sorting through and identifying Spotted, Solitary and Least Sandpipers, Greater and Lesser Yellowlegs, a scattering of Killdeers and a few Virginia Rails too.

I tried to honour the Dowitchers (above) with suitable photos befitting them as My Birds of the Day, but fell short. These gloomy shots were the best I could do, my mistake was in overreaching in low light conditions.

Good light does justice to the delightful wash of chestnut on a dowitcher’s breast and the spangling of warm browns, ochre and creams that overlay their wings and back. They carry an overall sense of balance, achieving a happy medium of shorebird proportions unlike their leggy, high-stepping, needle-nosed, yellowlegs cousins or fussy, thigh-deep-in-mud, peep sandpipers.

Five years ago I found a small group of Short-billed Dowitchers resting for the day in a shallow pond at an abandoned quarry. I was able to approach quite easily and eventually sat within a few yards of them. These and the masthead photo are from that day.