On 5/3/24 10:36AM, Louisa Evers wrote:

Just
going to call them all LBDOs.

You nailed it Louisa. The opinions were unanimous – they’re all
Long-billeds. I read that Birch/Lee article on Surfbirds the year
before it was published in Birding and I was really excited. I
started using their proposed field marks and quickly realized I was
finding way too many Short-billeds. That’s why I posted the photos
to ID Frontiers – I knew I was getting them wrong and I was willing
to take my lumps to learn.

Forget the Birding article. Except for the kink in the bill of
SBDO it’s almost useless for field identification. It was widely
and extensively criticized when it came out but Birding never
published the criticism. As Scott pointed out, the first pair of
birds in my photos seems to illustrate the difference in loral
angles proposed by Birch/Lee but it actually demonstrates why so
many experts criticized it. Loral angle doesn’t even work for the
photos in their own article. Here’s an excerpt from an email
posted on ID Frontiers by Ron Pittaway, one of the experts listed
in the article:

“7. Loral Angle ID: The loral angles shown on page 36 used to
distinguish the two species are of questionable value. Loral
angles should not to be trusted in the field and are of limited
value in photos. According to the graph on page 36 the
diagnostic loral angle is less than < 12 degrees for
Long-billed Dowitcher and greater than > 27 degrees for
Short-billed Dowitcher. Most birds, however, including the very
examples in Figure A (18 degrees) and Figure B (22 degrees) fall
in the wide 12 ­ 27 degrees overlap zone. If the bird’s head is
turned a tiny bit the loral angle is off. The loral angle
suggests precision and objectivity; however, it is variable and
subject to incorrect interpretations. For example, the bird
labeled a Long-billed (it’s a Short-billed as discussed in # 1
but corrected online) on page 34 keys out incorrectly to be a
Long-billed using loral angle. Jean Iron and I went through The
Shorebird Guide (O’Brien et al. 2006) keying out dowitchers
using loral angles. Some Short-billed Dowitchers keyed out as
Long-billed and vice versa. Try it yourself. This would be a
good project for a birding class to do in the classroom using
photos and comparing results.“

Based on comments in eBird checklists birders are still,
understandably, being led astray by that article. Hence this post.
If you don’t want to end up getting even more confused about
dowitcher ID (like I did), go back to the old field marks. They
still work. Once you have good understanding of them many SBDOs
are pretty straight forward to identify, but many aren’t. When you
think you have a Short-billed try to flush it and hope it calls to
confirm the ID. If you’re not comfortable being unable to ID, or
misidentifying, some individuals then dowitcher ID is not for you.
Just call them all “Dowitcher sp” because you will undoubtedly get
some of them wrong. 

I don’t want to discourage anyone from trying to ID dowitchers.
It’s still one of my favorite things to do. I love that it’s hard
to figure them out and that it adds to our understanding of
species distribution during migration. And they’ll let you walk
right up to them for in your face views. My guess is SBDO is more
regular in SW Idaho than the one accepted record in eBird
suggests. If you want to find them do yourself a favor and don’t
waste your time on field marks that don’t work.

Cliff

-- 
Cliff and Lisa Weisse
Island Park, Idaho
cliffandlisa@...