Long-billed Dowitcher (Limnodromus scolopaceus) 14 August 2012 at Salinas, Monterey Co, CA Photos © 2012 Joseph Morlan



I believe this is a second calendar year (SY) bird. There are three or possibly four generations of feathers visible. The black feathers with buff fringes are first alternate (breeding) plumage, the gray centered feathers with white fringes on the wing coverts are newly grown second basic (winter) plumage and the primaries exposed by the molted tertials are retained from juvenal plumage. There may also be some formative plumage feathers near the bend of the wing and on the scapulars.

I think molting dowitchers can be very difficult to distinguish, but this one is a Long-billed by a combination of characters. On structure, this is one of the Long-billed extremes with a very long bill, probably a female, and lacks the kink near the tip that Short-billed shows. On plumage, this bird lacks spotting on the belly and vent and the barring on the flanks has mostly worn off. Also Long-bills at this time of year show a dark spur of thick barring/spotting on the breast sides visible here, but not expected on Short-billed.

Short-billed migrate earlier than Long-bills. We saw both species here, but the Short-bills were all juveniles, the adults having passed through earlier. The Long-bills were all adults with juveniles not expected until next month.

Digiscoped with Panasonic DMC-LX5 | Nikon FieldScope III | 30XWA | hand-held (no adapter).
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