You are a cruel dude KCZooFan Where did you take this picture? Is there much of a shorebird migration that goes down (or up) through Kansas? I don't know much about the flyways of the Midwest.
um.....brown ...birds? Stupid waders! Are those Wilson's phalaropes in there? They are nice-lookin' waders. Better than all those other stinky brown ones.
This actually Isn't as hard as it appears...other than the phalaropes, about 80% of the birds are one species. The other three are in there, in smaller numbers. Kansas gets a surprising amount of shorebirds. I spent dozens of hours on mudlfats this fall identifying different sandpipers. I got 32 species in KS this year, and the only miss is ruddy turnstone. On the eastern side of Kansas (where I live) we have the Mississippi flyway. The Central Flyway runs through the middle of the state. Cheyenne Bottoms and Quivira are two vastly important wetlands in the center of the state. 90% of the world's Wilson's phalarope population migrates through there, as well as high percentages of other shorebirds. There was even a red-necked stint there this summer (I missed it by a day). For those of you not familiar with American bird migration, birds coming from their wintering grounds in the loosly Caribbean follow 4 flyways: two coastal ones (Atlantic and Pacific) and two indland ones (Mississippi and Central) to their northern breeding grounds. Shorebirds seen in Kansas this year (ones I've seen have a *): Black-bellied Plover* American Golden-plover* Snowy Plover* Wilson's Plover (rarity) Semipalmated Plover* Piping Plover* Killdeer* Mountain Plover Black-necked Stilt* American Avocet* Spotted Sandpiper* Solitary Sandpiper* Greater Yellowlegs* Willet* Lesser Yellowlegs* Upland Sandpiper* Whimbrel* Long-billed Curlew Hudsonian Godwit* Marbled Godwit* Ruddy Turnstone Red Knot (rarity) Sanderling* Semipalmated Sandpiper* Western Sandpiper* Red-necked Stint(rarity) Least Sandpiper* White-rumped Sandpiper* Baird's Sandpiper* Pectoral Sandpiper* Dunlin* Stilt Sandpiper* Buff-breasted Sandpiper* Short-billed Dowitcher* Long-billed Dowitcher* Wilson's Snipe* American Woodcock* Wilson's Phalarope* Red-necked Phalarope Sorry for all the info...I am bored so though a Kansas shorebird explination would fill the tme. Yes, those are the easy ones
Thanks for the great info on the Kansas shorebird migration - very informative. I had no idea all of those species moved through the midwest.
I don't see a dowitcher but I do see western and maybe some Bairds sandpipers plus the Wilson's phalaropes already mentioned.