Amy Silver found an oiled-looking dowitcher at Blacks Creek Reservoir (Ada Co) a few days ago and the extent of white in the tail seemed promising for a Short-billed. She saw it again & heard it call yesterday. Early evening today Bryce, Heidi, & I re-located it near the mouth of Blacks Creek as it enters the reservoir on the E end and were able to grab a few pics that seem to support Short-billed: among other features, (1) tail ~50% white, (2) small spots on sides of chest that transition to barring on the flanks, and (3) gold edges on the back feathers. Any input welcome.

Also, lots of other diversity there & RL was out there looking earlier in the afternoon and found a Red-necked Grebe on the deeper water – a great find for this spot and time of year!

Jay

> On Jun 6, 2017, at 6:42 PM, amysilver819@gmail.com [ible] wrote:
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> [Attachment(s) from amysilver819@gmail.com [ible] included below]
> Hi Everybody. This poor bird was at Blacks Creek Reservoir yesterday. Looks like some sort of dowitcher, but both short and long-billed are considered rare right now (by ebird). He seems thin, but that’s maybe just because he’s unwell?
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> The bird was pretty messed up, so I gave him plenty of space…
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> I’ve never really tried to differentiate between the dowitchers, but this one struck me as different (maybe just acting strangely because he was sick?) In most of the photos (not many), his tail is covered by his wings, but in this one, you can really see the white bands. The bill and face seem right, but he’s in bad shape and it’s hard to see color patterns in the sad mess of feathers. Any thoughts before I try to submit the report to ebird? There doesn’t seem to be a “short-billed/long-billed dowitcher” option 🙂
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> Thanks!
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> Amy Silver (Boise)
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