As evidenced by my lack of blogging, I haven't gotten much birding in lately. But, with my family off camping and me having an actual day off, I wasn't going to let the need for a winter coat in July dissuade me from the lakefront. I started at Tiscornia where a rain shower quickly chased Rhoda and me. We went south based on the radar and ended up walking from Cherry Beach to Weko, about 5.5 miles if I'm interpreting Google maps correctly. It's about the peak time for Piping Plover and about the beginning and the end respectively for Avocet and Laughing Gull.
We had seen a pair of Turnstones fly by Tiscornia, it wouldn't surprise me if this was the same pair at the main beach at Warren Dunes.
We saw one group of Sanderlings and the first mixed dabbler flock of the fall, though honestly fewer Sanderlings than I was expecting, this adult with just a few winter back feathers is from Tiscornia earlier in the week.
We were getting towards the end and I was starting to come to the conclusion that most of the shorebirds that hang out are probably in the same areas as the big beach areas that hold the gulls when this bird appeared in front of us. With the naked eye I thought it would be a Willet.
Nope, a Whimbrel! I've had Whimbrel in the county about 2/3 of the years; this was a yearbird, my first in a few weeks and my first self-found one this month. I think Rhoda may have digi-scoped better images than I managed. It's a bird worth a flight montage though.
The lighting was pretty tricky with the water reflecting back all the light present in the overcast, I had to really push the exposure to keep the bird from being completely back-lit. It's kind of an interesting monochrome effect though.
