a rare bird

I couldn't go look for the Curlew Sandpiper yesterday because I had an eye exam and the darn doctor dilated my eyes making driving and birding impossible! I went out very early this morning, not long after dawn, to the Westhampton Dunes platform overlooking the bay island at Pike's Beach where the bird had been seen yesterday (it had in fact been found at Cupsogue the day before but it was known to frequent this island and, with a spotting scope, the platform was, if you ignored the mosquitos, an excellent place to see it).

The tide was quite high and the island was reduced to a mere sliver. The raft of shorebirds still there included several different species busily working the sand and salt water for whatever it is that nourishes these creatures of the sand and salt in mid-June: a dozen or so Red Knots (with which the Curlew Sand was reportedly hanging out) plus American Oystercatcher, a Black-bellied Plover, many Willets (including a Western Willet, noticeably lighter and bigger than the locals), Sanderlings, Ruddy Turnstones, Semipalmated Sandpipers, dowitchers...but no Curlew Sandpiper. Finally, the rising tide covered what was left of the island, most of the birds departed and so did I.

Ah, but was I ready to give up so easily? No, indeed. A couple of hours later, as the tide began to drop, I was back at the overlook but overlooking many of the same birds. The supporting cast without the star. After hanging out for a while on the chance that the bird would show up, I became aware of a group of birders a ways to the east on the other side of Pike's Beach; I could see that they were working their way over the top of the peninsula which had been formed, lo these many years ago, by The Perfect Storm (the 1991 hurricane/nor'easter that isolated Westhampton dunes from the rest of the world for a while and created the best shorebird habitat on the East End).

I drove over to the Pike's Beach parking lot and, shouldering my spotting scope, headed east along the bay front and then over the top of the peninsula, being careful to take a circular route to avoid flushing any birds on the east side of the peninsula. Bingo! Along with a supporting cast of birds and quite a few birders, some of them old friends, was our featured performer. He was hanging, not with Knots, but with a small group of Sanderlings, Ruddy Turnstones, Semipalmated Sandpipers and, oddly enough, a Piping Plover. Amidst this group of rather modest and rather modestly attired citizens of the sand, the big, flamboyant Curlew Sandpiper, in full breeding plumage, stood out like the star attraction that he was: a good-sized bird with a strong black curved bill (hence his name), dark intense rufous body color, a striking white eye ring, something of an eye stripe and a ring of white at the base of the bill, a black-and-red marbled back, grayish upper wing with black-and-white wings which, when seen in flight, are almost as striking at the Willet's; also an all- white underwing, white rump and white lower underparts with long, black legs. This elegant Eurasian sandpiper nests in Siberia and is only a vagrant in North America. Even so, it is usually seen in non-breeding plumage. This male in top breeding plumage is a truly distinguished visitor.

Eric Salzman