The first question I had to ask myself was does the juvenile really have a short bill? In fact the bird is a particularly small, slight individual compared to the two adults and this alone would account for the shorter bill in direct comparison. However the bill is about 1.3 times the head length, despite the head itself looking somewhat small, so I'm sure it must be on the short side for Long-billed. However I don't know how short a juvenile's bill can be, particularly if a male, but an online search quickly reveals equally short-billed birds. So short but not exceptional might be the answer to my question. I gather only the very shortest Short-billed Dowitcher bills are identifiable by bill length and I'm curious to know what they'd look like but I've yet to find an online image purporting to show a Short-billed identifiable on bill length alone. Though the deeper base looks obvious on some individuals.
While I have no doubt about this bird being Long-billed (even if I'd hoped otherwise when I first saw it), the only very slightly marked tertials and inner greater coverts immediately place it firmly in that camp. Nevertheless it remains an odd-looking bird to me. The proportions don't quite accord with the usual fairly consistent Dowitchers I see. But of course though Dowitchers can look straight-billed one minute then droop-tipped the next, this bird takes variability to a new level and it could move higher or lower on the scale of oddness as if outrageously attempting to morph from Dowitcher to tringa at times.
Some of the following images were taken early in the morning before the sun broke through, others later in the day with bright side lighting. The selection I'm posting here attempt to show the bird from all angles and give a sense of what to me, with my very limited Dowitcher experience, is a peculiar bird. Perhaps people used to seeing them will wonder why I find it unusual.
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Though it never showed more than two primary tips beyond the tertials it did so often, a small projection can be seen even on a 'distant' view like this. Those of the adults were more often cloaked. The following shot shows how prominent the projection could be.
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Trawling through Long-billed / Short-billed identification was something of an education but I was left puzzled by a couple of points this threw up. One was the loral angle and supercillium shape and the other the white lesser underwing coverts of Long-billed.
I found the former puzzling because the angle and shape varied so much depending on stance. The first two or three shots in this post show an almost arrow straight line, straighter even than I'd expect from the average Long-billed, while the following shots show a distinctly arched Supercillium. Then there are the underwing coverts. Both the juvenile and one adult have fully barred lesser coverts so presumably this is a one way feature; if there's a white bar it's Long-billed, if not it could be either?
Another feature my inexperienced eye was drawn to was the significant difference in rump barring. The juvenile has very fine barring but the adult has very bold, broad bars. Is the fine barring a feature of juvenile? I can't find any mention of this in the literature I have. Nor did I find any mention of the rufous tips to the tail and longest uppertail coverts outside of breeding adults. This strikes me as surprising because so much detailed information has been written about this difficult to separate pair. Perhaps because these features have no relevance to the separation of Long- and Short-billed? It never ceases to amaze (and frustrate) me that after a lifetime birding there are so many things I don't know.
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