Wednesday, August 24, 2011

HUGO the Hudwit

I took the family to Tiscornia in the afternoon, went swimming with the kids, built a sand castle, saw a dozen or so Willets fly by. All in all a very pleasant afternoon. And I just happened to take bins and the camera too. You know, just in case. Just in case I was scanning up the beach and noticed a scope on a tripod and Tim a little ways farther photographing something. Just to be safe I wandered up to make sure they were just willets. They were. Except for the slightly heavier browner one with the longer bill.
A moulting adult Hudsonian Godwit had settled in with 4 juvie Willets, probably only the 5th one I've ever seen and my first at Tiscornia.
Note the remnants of barred brick underparts and a few winter gray coverts in the wings matching the winter back.
It was pretty tame.
I managed to restrict myself to less than 500 frames.
I liked the contrast between the thick black legs of the godwit and the thinner greener legs of the young Willets.
The bird was pretty striking in flight too.



2 comments:

Caleb Putnam said...

Matt- those photos of the underwing of the HUGO are awesome!

Jason Bugay Reyes said...

Lovely shots there 1