Saturday, May 3, 2008
New Bird
Thursday afternoon I saw a bird that is new to me and may be the rarest bird I will ever see. It is called a Bristle-thighed Curlew and the total world population is thought to be about 3,500 birds. It is a long legged wading bird about twice the size of a Killdeer. It winters on many pacific islands including the Northwest Hawaiian Islands. Then, beginning in early May, it stages on several of the northern most Hawaiian Islands and flies 4,000 miles, over water, without stopping, to it's breeding range in western Alaska. It was known from the wintering areas but it's nesting area was not discovered until 1948. An amazing sight!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
Hi, Gary:
I would like to hear a little more about when you saw the Bristle-thighed Curlew. Where, when how, what, etc. How close? I did Google it, and then went to the Audubon Watch List site and read about it. Very interesting. It really does so often come down to habitat preservation, doesn't it? Of course that includes food supply not being screwed up with foreign objects like you are witnessing there.
Here--went to Grande Fri. Guys send their best. Seems they don't get on the computer much. The talk is of fishing trip to L. Davis next weekend. And of course sports, sports and sports. Oh, Larry caught an 8 pound 28 inch striped bass in Sac R. down by Colusa in Dave's boat. He's been stoked about that for a couple of weeks!
Take care,
JV
Post a Comment