My Camera and I : Becoming Friends - Good Friends

On May 1st, Laurent took me and my new camera to Crane Creek, one of the migration hot spots of the Great Lakes region and frankly the whole of North America. We only had a few hours there but a few hours at Crane Creek are always better than a few hours not at Crane Creek (so I was told), especially when it is your first visit to the area.
After my camera and I had started to get to know each other a little bit at the Arb, this was meant to be the first real test of the strength of our newly established relationship, so I was almost as anxious to see how my camera would behave as to see how the birds would perform.

What can I say?
Only the best as my camera proved to be very well behaved in public and the company of birds and the birds themselves were performing very well as well.
This, therefore, is the first post on Belltower Birding that will not be so much about the words than about the pictures, a little celebration of my new camera, the beauty of birds and the wonder of spring migration around the Great Lakes.

Hope you enjoy it...

The board walk at Crane Creek where all the song bird action takes place

Capturing a Snowy Egret in flight proved still a little difficult ...

...but this Great Blue Heron managed to calm down my slightly disappointed camera, ...

...and this Great White Egret finally fully restored the camera's self esteem.

This female Bald Eagle had challenged the camera by hiding amongst thick branches and twigs but had no chance of escaping, no chance at all.

Thrushes were still dominated by Hermit Thrushes, which I didn't mind too much ....

...as they proved to be exceedingly cooperative.


A Wood Thrush was a bit elusive but still a marvellous sight ...

...and American Robins are nice as well.

A Common Grackle posed as a multi-task - or rather multi-straw - builder...

...while a snobby male Rose-breasted Grosbeak apparently couldn't be bothered to attend the photo shoot

A newly described Wintergolden-Summerruby-Crowned Kinglet in its summer plumage

We encountered a total of 10 wood warbler species, Palm Warbler, Pine Warbler, Common Yellowthroat, Northern Waterthrush, Nashville Warbler, Yellow Warbler, Yellow-rumped Warbler, Black-and-White Warbler, Cape May Warbler (nice!) and Black-throated Green Warler (this time I got the spelling of the colour right).
The warblers sure were difficult and the following images don't do their beauty justice, but I think my camera braved this extreme quite well and we learn from our mistakes (like not using the flash when photographing a warbler against the background of a bright blue sky, which from now on I shall do).

Mr. Handsome himself: the Yellow-rumped Warbler

Same bird, different angle, still looking good

Western Palm Warbler, slightly out of focus but I don't care.

Black-throated Green Warbler

A frustrated Cape May Warbler:"Use your flash, stupid!"

Nice of him to still pose for the camera

Black-and-white Warbler, head-on view

Black-and-white Warbler upside down, making it the first documented White-and-black Warbler ever

And from behind, the first documented Relbraw etihw-dna-kcalb for Crane Creek

Apart from being a good bird watching day, the afternoon at Crane Creek was also excellent regarding Birdering, as we managed a fine encounter with Kenn Kaufman. Well, we didn't get in direct contact and I only managed a photo documentation (not a great shot) of this very special birder record, but as you won't believe me without proof, here's the pic:

R E V O L U T I O N

When I travelled through southern Ontario and Michigan in May 2005, I had my trusty old camera equipment from the 1980s with me, the monstrous and scary yet somehow pretty good Novoflex lens and an old Minolta Camera, like this one. As you can see, it did not have a winder and you had to transport the film yourself after every shot. I got pretty quick at this over the years, but that speed apparently worked hard on the camera's mechanics as I usually was only able to use them for two to three years until the film transportation system would collapse and I was forced to get a new camera.
And this is what happened during my trip through North America in May 2005, after I had found a Porcupine during a hike around Trout Lake. Here's the last picture I was able to take, and then the curtain fell completely, literally.


Back in Germany I enquired about a new X 700 but was told these were not being produced anymore and I'd have to get one second hand, best through eBay or other Internet sources.
Well, sure I could have organized myself another antique camera, after all they really weren't bad, but I decided this was a sign, a little hint by fate to push me towards digital photography.
Problem was: finances were not overly abundant after a trip to another continent and so it took me a long, long time - the longest time ever without a camera since I was 11 years old - until I received a new and - yes - digital SLR at the end of last week.
It's nothing overly fancy of course and once I have tested it enough to know what I am talking about I might write a review on this blog, but I am sure it will serve well to put more colour onto this humble blog and more belief in my future claims of Bachman's Warblers and Labrador Ducks along the Huron River.


Frankly, I had not realized just how massively outdated my equipment and thus myself had been back until 2005 and when I went to the Arb on Sunday with my wife to test the new camera (my wife also got herself a really cool point-and-shoot), I had the distinct feeling of having switched from this to this without having first obtained my PhD in Astrophysics and the latter being a big mistake.

Oh dear, how was I going to cope?

Well, I need a lot of practice, particularly preventing camera shake from not holding still enough (the Novoflex was much more heavy which meant there was little risk of your pulse messing up your image as in this light-weight equipment), but considering I had pictures like this on my blog before ...



it seems I am doing much better with this now:



This (above) was actually the first ever bird picture with the new camera, and even though the Cardinal is not sitting in a bush with snow, it is still a worthy reintroduction of the photographing Belltowerbirder to the wild.
Northern Cardinals are actually such nice and obeying photo objects that I managed a few more shots. I know these pictures are not so special, but hey, this is my new camera and these are actually pictures I took myself, not just links to other pages, so you'll have to live with it for a while! Therefore, here are the Northern Cardinals:




We spent a total of 3 hours at the Arb around noon and it was yet again rather busy - weekend - but less crowded than before with most students gone (summer break). Bird life was not so abundant due to the time of day and people around, and I was focusing with and on my camera anyway and not fully paying attention to every peep from the canopy and rustling of leaves from the forest floor (it is very difficult to handle an auto focus for the very first time in your life, I can assure you that in case you have forgotten).
Photo opportunities came in the form of the Superior Raptork (formerly called Turkey Vulture) at the beach section, and I tried to make the most of my chance and obtain a decent image.



Of course, Belltower Birding always thrives to deliver insights beyond the cool and one of the advantages of a 10 Mega pixel camera is that you can zoom in quite nicely. What follows is heavily cropped, but it allows us to age the bird. The facial skin is still clearly blackish and not fully and bright red as it should be for an adult, and the bill is still dark instead of Ivory (oh, the word) as in decent adults, so there we have it aged: a bird in its second calendar year, which will soon be celebrating its first birthday.



I have now been in Ann Arbor more than half a year and my new camera now finally allowed me to thank the city and South-East Michigan in general for the Barred and Snowy Owl, for the Black-throated Gray Warbler, the Red-shouldered Hawks, Lesser Scaups and all those other lifers and goodies. Thank you all, you're great and GO BLUE !!!




And last but not least for the first day out with a brand new camera, the warbler pics I got.

This is where the auto focus of my camera realized how unfortunate it was to have ended in the hands of a bird photographer. The camera struggled and it worked and it cursed and it wished an old nanny would have bought it to take pictures of her little doggies but no, it had to be warblers in a sea of twigs and leaves. Here are the least shameful results. I suppose I still need to make a few changes on the technical settings of the camera, but I'll work it out before the arrival of the Swainson's Warblers at the Arb, for sure. I had temporarily wondered if it was possible to publish these as proof for Ivory-billed Woodpeckers in Michigan and buy myself a nice little house in Costa Rica from the funding I'd receive, like Rancho Naturalista. But I guess I am just an honest guy, so here are some pictures of Yellow-rumped Warblers from the Arb last Sunday...


So let's go then, bring on spring migration !

News Item

It is grey and rainy outside, and so I spent all day working on my computer and finishing that recent post of mine that was so rudely interrupted by the Black-throated Gray Warbler. It has gotten a very long story, but now that it's finished, you might want to read it here.

Update: Warbler Statistics

Well, I am back from the Arb and thought it was about time I updated my Warbler Statistics for this spring migration period:

Yellow-rumped Warbler: 26
Pine Warbler: 3
Nashville Warbler: 1
Black-throated Green Warbler: 1

Oh, shugar, sorry, a typo, did I just write Black-throated Green Warbler?
My mistake, of course it is Black-throated GRAY Warbler!

But wait ...

Isn't that a western species?

Yes.

And isn't Ann Arbor in Michigan?

Yes.

So, isn't it a bit unusual then to see a Black-throated Gray Warbler in Ann Arbor?

Y E S ! ! !

Can you believe it?
It was found this morning at the Arb by Roger Kuhlman who immediately alerted others through the email forum and there were constant updates and silly me didn't check his emails until 3 pm!!

I am not that much into twitching but I must say I don't think I've ever made it to the Arb that fast.
The location was described in very much detail but was in a corner of the Arb I had never been to before (almost as hard to believe as the warbler itself, right?). "Not to worry", I thought, "there will surely be a bunch of birders on the bird and all I'll have to do is to see where there is a higher than usual density of binoculars."

Well, when I got to the spot, there was no one there but me. Oh my, the Arb is popular, but it is not Point Pelee and it was a normal working day and not the weekend...
No birders.
No warblers.

So I stood there and scanned the trees for any movements.
There!
Tufted Titmouse.

There again: Butterbutt, sorry, Yellow-rumped Warbler.

And again, more Yellow-rumpeds, a whole party of around 10 birds, a good sign!
So my optimism flooded back into me as I was joined by eventually two more birders and we were frantically, I mean calmly and with quiet concentration, scanning the trees.

Then I spotted this pale, small bird high up in the canopy with a black throat.
"OK", I thought to myself, "remain quiet, you don't want this to be a Black-capped Chickadee and you turned into the laugh of the town (as we say in German)."
It was partially obscured by branches and I had to wait for what felt like a week but was probably just over 5 seconds before it hopped on into plain view and really turned into the warbler!!

I quickly got the other two onto the bird and we watched it for about 15 minutes while it slowly worked its way down the tree from the canopy all the way to the shrubs around us, passing us at eye level less than 5 metres away (too close for the focus range of my binoculars) to eventually hop onto a tree trunk and act as if it was the most natural bird to be around at the Arb and as if it really didn't know what all the fuzz was about.

Gosh, it is good to see a Black-throated Gray Warbler at the Arb, but to see it so closely you can marvel at the yellow spot on its supercilium is something quite beyond good, I can assure you that.
Andreas Kanon is trying to get photos of it just now and if he or anyone else does, I'll link to them.
Meanwhile, here are a few links to images of other Black-throated Gray Warblers just for the beauty of the species and something nice to link to:
link
link

Spring migration rocks!

UPDATE:
Here is a link to one of the pictures Andreas took yesterday.
Furthermore, I heard that this is only the 8th or so record ever for Michigan. Pretty good.

Run for cover: Spring Explosion!

Warning!

This is a very long post with lots of text and only a few pictures (not even very recent ones, from early April just to spice things up a bit because otherwise no one would tackle that never ending row of text below). That's what happens when you go outside at the end of April in fabulous weather for three consecutive days: so much to blog about that you don't know where to start or if you'll ever get to the end.
And I need to hurry because Charlie of Charlie's Bird Blog fame and I are about to write a blog piece together about Waterthrush identification. And since my last two posts were somewhat identification-related, I need to provide a bit more variety along the lines of "went there, saw that" before delivering yet more about why a certain bird is what it says in the books it is.
So here goes.... the Arb!

Saturday and Sunday were immensely warm, just like summer. I am aware that all my recent blog posts started with a description of the weather and this is not a trick to reach more potential readers but a sign of just how amazed I still am at how extreme the weather is around here with no mountains or a nearby sea to keep things balanced. Anyway, the sky was bright blue, the sun was blasting away merrily and the temperatures were around 27°C. That's hot.

So my wife and I decided to visit the Arb on both days for an hour or two in the afternoon, which was such an obviously good idea that we actually were not quite alone there: around 200 others had thought the same and subsequently done the same which is to go to the Arb.

Of course there wasn't much bird life around with so many people but nevertheless (and I'll keep this short because Monday was so much better and will be described in detail below) we did manage some very nice FOS encounters (first of season, I learned that abbreviation recently and just had to use it to pretend I was cool, too) :
It was nice to see my first Barn Swallows hunting over the Huron river. The beach section also hosted my first Yellow-rumped Warbler of the season which - as I had mentioned in previous posts - was very smart by not frequenting the busy Arb itself but the trees just opposite the river. The most unexpected bird was a Blue-headed Vireo. This was also the first vireo I spotted in spring 2005 here in Michigan and those spectacles on its head that appears two or three sizes too big for the remainder of the body make for a great sight. Chipping Sparrows suddenly were everywhere and it was great to compare their trill to the song of the Pine Warbler that's still hanging around at the same spot close to the cemetery. I am actually starting to hear a difference in their songs which are very similar indeed: The Chipping Sparrow has a more whetting song reminiscent of a sewing machine whereas the trill of the Pine Warbler is more clear and pure. It seems easier for Europeans: if you are in North America and you hear the song of a River Warbler Locustella fluviatilis, you're either close to getting the rarity record of your life or you're about to learn how similar its song is to a Chipping Sparrow.
I was surprised to find a Hermit Thrush despite the many people around and a Dark-eyed Junco might be amongst the last ones I get to see until the next fall. And I got to see a Red-shouldered Hawk and started to wonder why I did not manage an encounter in May 2005. No comments on that one, please.

As I have mentioned before, the mammalian diversity was also remarkable, and besides the Chipmunks, Squirrels and Woodchucks we were treated to sights of the Common Sunbather (a few red morphs), the Dogwalking Birdflusher, a handful of Topless Machojoggers and herds of immature Woodscreamers.

The central grassy area without the weekend Common Sunbather population

On Sunday, we decided to check out a stand of evergreens next to the Dow Prairie section of the Arb to see what was happening and have a sandwich or two on the benches in front of the evergreens. Well, what was happening was that those benches were - predictably - occupied by a group of Noisy Benchresters and so we refrained from getting too close as we did not expect a very prolific bird life around them. Later in the evening, back home, I found out by checking my emails that this had been an excellent idea, seriously really brilliant, as that stand of evergreens hosted an Ovenbird on Sunday afternoon despite the presence of the Benchresters, and I mean, who'd volunteer to look at a bird that walks as if it has eaten one too many fermented berries?

Exactly!

Me!!

Gradually the idea developed in my mind to return to the Arb on Monday afternoon and see if I couldn't relocate that Ovenbird.

And so it was, I returned to the Arb on Monday at around 1 pm for a marvellous 4-hour tour and a first taste of real spring-has-sprung bird life! And this is where blogging becomes tricky: there was so much around it is hard to think of a story to connect all those observations nicely and make it interesting and one step beyond the "seen this and that".

I therefore decided to sort the observations into different categories.

1. The Warblers and their EAS (Emotionally Allied Species)
The Arb had long been a One-species show (Pine Warbler) that had turned into a Two-species event on Saturday and this Monday delivered the natural succession in the form of a Three-species day:
On my way to the reliable Pine Warbler site I spotted my first close and really nice Yellow-rumped Warbler of the season. Many more were to follow, as a matter of fact, and I ended the day with approximately 15 Butterbutts. They are so great to have back and despite their abundance (which I am expecting any day now) their colouration is so neat that they are indeed my favourite warbler (if I am not looking at another warbler species because then the one I am looking at will instantly turn into my favourite species, until I spot the next one and then this goes on and on... but when I am not looking at a warbler, like now at my apartment, I'd say Yellow-rumpeds are my favourites. Well, now that I think of it, Prothonotaries are pretty nice as well and .... aaargh, stop!!).
Anyway, I was mentioning the third species above - and remember, this was before the Black-throated Gray Miracle - and I actually almost missed it because the Arb was full of Kinglets that day, which I'll describe later, and I had completely forgotten just how tiny this warbler is, so when a tiny bundle of feathers jumped out of a bush and flew into a nearby tree, I almost completely neglected it. Well, almost completely! But not completely completely, and so this "kinglet" was soon turned into my first-of-season Nashville Warbler! And of course I also re-found and re-looked at the trusty old faithful Pine Warbler, making it a three-species day. Well, hopes were high to get that Ovenbird as well and there were a few reports of Palm Warblers but I had run out of warbler luck and this was all for the day. Of course, now in retrospective I know my warbler luck was just taking a deep breath for a perfect delivery the next day, which back then I didn't know, innocent little me.
Pity about the Palm Warbler though. I'd really like to see the Eastern subspecies which is omnipresent on so many East coast blogs now and I figure the earlier I see a Palm the better my chances are it will be an Eastern, but hey, after such a high dose of Western, a bit from the East might just push things back into place? We'll see ... or not.

One of the two areas that are good for Pine Warblers

What about those "emotionally allied species"? Well, these are the species I always somehow - emotionally as the rational part of me knows it is wrong to do so - group right into the warblers: the Vireos.
Come on, they are similar looking and they occur together and what would a 25-species-warbler-day at Pelee be without 5 species of vireos as well?
Right you are: still excellent!
But not really complete, so here are a few words on the vireo(s): there was only one species, but that one is a really cool one and was represented with a few individuals, and I have mentioned it above already, so you know why it rocks and if you don't you can look it up again: the Blue-headed Vireo.
And for those who are happy they've made it this far through the text and don't want to go back or even remember what they've just read, here's a link to pretty pictures of the species and then you'll know what I am talking about.

2. Kinglet Mystery solved!
That day of the Arb finally brought with it the moment of revelation, the truth unveiled itself before me in the form of Ruby-crowned Kinglets that were everywhere, and not a single Golden-crowned was around, not one.
Now, that made me think and even though this mostly leads to nowhere near sanity, I came up with an interesting theory that might be worth considering in more detail.

You probably think there's two species in North America, right? Like it says in the field guides, the Golden-crowned and the Ruby-crowned Kinglet.
I'll tell you something, this is a lie! There actually is only one species of kinglet in North America, and here's why.

Hypothesis:
Remarkable that we are mostly seeing only one of the species, sometimes with singles of the other species within a large group, but you never come across a large kinglet group which has a 50:50 distribution? The reason for that is rather obvious once the thought is perceived and it makes you wonder why it took humanity so long to unmask this one of mother nature's mysteries.
You see, they are both the same species, the "Golden-crowned" is actually its winter plumage (which is why we see it so early in spring) whereas the "Ruby-crowned" is its summer plumage (which is why we see it later). And the North American kinglet is the only bird species in the world that actually changes from winter to summer plumage within a few hours over night. And because no one is looking at kinglets during the night, we have never noticed it. All we notice is that we see nothing but the one "species" and then suddenly the next morning brings sightings of only the other one. Due to a lack of nutrition or other obvious reasons, some kinglets show a late moult which is why we sometimes see single individuals of the one "species" within groups of the other "species". But of course they also moult a few days later and so the time zone of "overlap" which had us thinking they are two separate species instead of one is quite limited.
It is that simple!
Now, what do we name the new "united" kinglet? Wintergolden-Summerruby-crowned Kinglet?
Yes, I like that, sound good to me.

3. High Five
It's quite a flat joke but I still couldn't resist to call a day with 5 raptors a "high five" day. Five isn't all that much but it was nice nevertheless. First up, plenty of Turkey Vultures and still not a single flap of a wing, just cool cruising, superior Raptorks (a new classification system for New World Vultures, introduced here for the first time at yours truly, Belltower birding).
And of course, the Bell Tower Peregrine Falcons were around, not at the Arb, so again I am stretching things quite a bit just to make blogging a bit more fun, but seeing them on the way to the Arb counts as well.
The Buteo haws were good that day. The resident pair of Red-tailed Hawks threw a big party that afternoon and had invited all the American Crows of the neighbourhood. While one of the hawks had apparently gone to fetch more beer, the other one entertained its guests with a lot of aerial dancing (often with three or more crows at the same time, the old Casanova) and it seems it is a good story teller, too because the crows were really cheering the hawk on when it sat in a tree and was calling for minutes without even taking a breath.
The other two species were a Red-shouldered Hawk again over Dow Prairie, and while I was still contemplating about telling it apart from a Broad-winged Hawk, a Broad-winged Hawk - the first of the season for me - came circling right above me as if to demonstrate how simple it is and how stupid of me to even doubt it was easy.

4. Secrets seen
Maybe the best bird of the day was not a warbler. I know, I am taking risks here, but I did see two (!) Brown Thrashers which was great because a) this was very unexpected b) one of them sat still in a bush for a long time very close to me and that's not so usual c) it is a neat bird as can be seen here and d) this is a really cool name for a bird: Thrasher, a bad ass name for a bad ass bird!
Like sparrows and Catharus thrushes, the Thrasher is a secretive bird that takes skill in other birder's cases and copious amounts of luck in my case to see and I am always happy to chance upon a bird and see it well. The same goes for the Eastern Towhee I saw, even though they either like me more than do the Brown Thrashers or are less secretive. Either way, they are nice to see, too.

5. Battle of the Drummers
Well, 5-woodpecker-species days at the Arb are not so unusual nowadays and this day was only a 4-species day, so where is the big deal?
Ever watched Tom & Jerry?
I did - still do on occasion which is besides the point - and now I know that these things, this chasing each other around stuff, really happens out in nature: I have now seen what it's like when 3 Downy Woodpeckers chase off a Yellow-bellied Sapsucker which itself drives a Common Flicker off the tree while avoiding the Downy attacks and this whole flurry of 5 dog fighting birds lures 2 Red-bellied Woodpeckers in to join the party, and this all went on for what was a minute or so, relatively long!
This is why birding is better than fishing: more action!

6. The Huron Delivers
After crossing Dow Prairie (with the Red-shouldered Hawk) I decided to walk back to the Beach section of the Arb along the Huron, which is only a couple of Hundred metres. The reason for doing so, apart from getting to see even more birds, was to check if I could locate a pair of Wood Ducks. Scanning though my copy of the Sibley guide, I recently noticed that his painting shows the male Wood Duck to have bright yellow flanks and I found that strange as I didn't recall the duck being that bright. I therefore wanted to check and see for myself what was going on.
There is a small rather dependable stretch of Huron just opposite Dow Prairie and sure enough, I had barely lifted my binoculars and started to scan the opposite bank of the river when I spotted a pair of Wood Ducks without bright yellow flanks, as can be seen here. But then suddenly, there was a flash of yellow - well rather orange - at the edge of my field of view, and turning the binoculars a bit further to the left, I was able to identify the orange stripes as being the legs of a Green Heron, another first-of-season and not such a shabby species in general. In the olden times when I was still a young and wild birdwatcher I surely would have been happy about this double pack and gone on, but with years of experience, I knew that there was still more, so I turned my binoculars a further 10 metres along the banks and voilà, a Belted Kingfisher.
Cool Beans!
Did I stop there? Or did I scan some more?
Well, as I said, years of experiences blah blah and I just knew this time that it was enough. So I stopped checking the banks of the Huron but looked up instead, and voilà again:
Northern Rough-winged Swallows, the first this season.
I might have mentioned it before somewhere, not sure, but I say it again anyway: I like the Huron River, I really do.

7. The Rest of the Best
I try to make at least this section short, but there were quite a few more nice birds, like a fly-over Killdeer, a nice and close group of Blue Jays, Tufted Titmice and Brown Creepers, the first Carolina Wren in a long, long time, many Hermit Thrushes which would be yet another story as they are more reddish now than they were in winter and I think the winter birds are of a more westerly origin but cannot support this in any way which is why I only mention it here briefly, and finally the White-throated Sparrows are back in good numbers.

8. Evening Treat
I went to a downtown restaurant with my wife that evening and returning home around sunset, I heard this strange but familiar trill high up and there they were, the Chimney Swifts, two of them to bring this great birding day and excessively long post to a glorious and deserving end.
It's been good, really good.

Mute Swan Ageing

Corey over at Lovely,Dark and Deep has an interesting picture here of an immature swan and he - not the swan - isn't entirely sure about the bird's specific identity.

Sure enough, it looks very much like a Mute Swan but some things about the bird's bill structure and colouration do appear a bit strange.
I am not going to make an attempt at saying here what it is by just having seen one picture of the bird but I thought it might be useful to put up some pictures of Mute Swans I took at the end of February 2006 in Stralsund on the German Baltic coast.

The first two pictures are of a bird in its second calendar year. The plumage is still largely grey brown and looks dirty. The same goes for the bill which looks dirty pink, as if it was rubbed in coal dust.



Note the very pointed tail which is a unique feature of the Mute Swan and often much better suited to distinguish between immature birds of the different species than bill colouration.

Next up is a picture of two adults with one third calendar year bird on the right and a cropped version showing only the head of the immature (and a Mallard). You can distinguish it from adult birds by its paler colouration which still is more pink than orange (as it should be for an adult bird). The plumage is completely white as in adults but some show a few single brownish feathers here and there.



And here finally a nice and crisp adult with a bright orange bill.


Common maybe, but pretty nice as well.

Not So Solitary After All?

A lot has been said before and one must hurry to get things online before boredom strikes but that publication on DNA-based research into North American cryptic species really is remarkable and very inspiring.
One of the most surprising findings - at least in my opinion, heck, I always knew there was no such thing as a "Cinnamon Teal" - was that the two forms of the Solitary Sandpiper probably require being regarded as separate species. So far so good and nothing new anymore.
But what might strike us more than that is the fact that the vast majority of birdwatchers will very likely have to remove the Solitary Sandpiper from their life list, me included, because I am sure not many will have ever tackled the subspecific identification of the "species".

Gasp!

Let us be honest: as long as we don't know how to differentiate between the two species most of us won't have an armchair tick but indeed one species less on our list!
Surely I have seen it on a number of occasions in May 2005, actually I encountered a total of 8 birds on three occasions and they most probably (mostly) belonged to the nominate subspecies, but can I be sure? Do I know anything about the occurrence of the north-western subspecies in southern Ontario or Michigan?

No.

Even if it is unlikely, all could have possibly been western birds. And who knows, even if one has seen a multitude of Solitaries in California, they may all have been Eastern nominate birds. We just cannot know.

Oh, disgusting, a lack of knowledge! Ew, we can't have that and better get prepared for this spring's Solitary Sandpiper migration.
I recently ventured out into the world wide web and my local bookstore (Why buy them when you can look things up there and the store's just across the street?) to get informed. And if you are interested in putting the Solitary Sandpiper back on your life list where it belongs, you might want to read on a little more...


Names, Geography and Status
There are two forms, very likely separate species, as I have written before:

Tringa (solitaria) solitaria - from now on Eastern
Breeds in the south from central British Columbia all the way to Labrador.
This is the common form migrating through the East.

Tringa (solitaria) cinnamomea - from now on Western
Breeds to the North of solitaria, from Hudson Bay all the way to Alaska.
This is the common form migrating through the West. "Common" however needs to be put into context: the population of this western form is estimated at comprising only around 4,000 birds, making it one of the rarest North American shorebird forms, and it is in decline.
Now, that's scary. If however we take into account that the population of both forms put together is only around 25,000 birds (although the quality of the estimates is said to be poor), then roughly 1 out of 5 Solitaries is a Western and if they were equally distributed during migration, I'd have likely seen 1.28 Western and 6.72 Eastern birds - statistically. Well, "It's my list" but I am reluctant to put both forms on my life list, honestly. The trick for me is to not update my list until I have found both forms in southern Michigan this spring and then it won't matter, so now to the ...

Identification
Who am I to write about their identification?
Exactly: nobody!
I have only seen 8 birds ever and didn't even know back then there are two subspecies. What follows therefore is no authoritative essay on their identification, it is based on no expertise at all, it is only based on looking at as many images as I could find and trying to spot the differences. If you know better / more / whatever or want to contribute pictures, please leave a comment which I may use to improve these very humble lines! Highly appreciated.

Images I used

Here is a list of the images I was able to find on the Internet. Those bird images from the West Coast were attributed by me to show Western Solitary Sandpipers, those from East of the Rockies to be of Eastern Solitary Sandpipers.
That of course is something - yet again - which I do not know (most birds photographed in the West could also be Eastern birds while a few in the East could be Western), but hey, I had to try and sort things out somehow!

Western Solitary - spring
California April, Oregon April, British Columbia May (breeding Eastern?), Alaska Breeding Season, Washington May (use the "previous" and "next" buttons to see more pics of the bird), Alaska June, Alaska Breeding Season

Western Solitary - fall/autumn
California September, California August (both may indeed be Eastern)

Eastern Solitary - spring
Ohio May, Minnesota May, Ohio May, Ohio May, Ohio April, Kentucky April, New Jersey May

Eastern solitary - fall/autumn
Virginia July, Virginia September, Indiana August, Indiana October, Ohio July, Ohio July, Ohio September, New York September, New Jersey October, New Jersey August, Ohio July

In Between (central States, probably Eastern)
Utah August, Colorado April

Unknown Date and/or Place (probably mostly Eastern with one likely Western)
Link, link, link, link, link, link, link, link, link, link, link


Gathering these links was a lot of rather boring work, so please take a minute to appreciate it.

Thank You.

Possible Ways of Telling Them Apart

General impression - the "Gestalt"
Judging from the images, Western is a more slender bird with proportions reminiscent of a Lesser Yellowlegs (vaguely) whereas Eastern is a more chubby thing to watch and doesn't manage to conjure any resemblance to a Lesser Yellowlegs. The following might be of limited use to American birders, but from a Eurasian perspective, Western is more like Wood Sandpiper whereas Eastern is reminiscent of Green Sandpiper.
Furthermore, the bill of Western appears to be relatively longer and slightly more down curved, although this might also only be an impression and maybe not true when looking at absolute measurements.

Bill and Leg Colouration
Again, this is only an impression I have looking at the photographs and this is particularly difficult to judge, but it appears the legs of Western are brighter yellow than those of Eastern which shows a bit of a greenish shade to the legs.
Furthermore, the bill of Western appears to be quite prominently bi-coloured, with a pale basal two-thirds and a black distal third. This is also the case in Eastern, but the border between the two is apparently not as clearly defined as in Western and it seems to be a gradual change from pale to dark.

Plumage
In general, Western is a paler brown bird whereas Eastern is rather dark, appearing almost blackish when standing in the shade. This of course will be very difficult to assess on solitary Solitaries (guess you've been waiting for this to come up?) or birds in bright sunlight.
The tertials are often quite worn but when seen clearly seem to provide one of the two most stable and useful clues: both show a string of white spots along the edge of each tertial, but these spots are flat and rather rectangular in Western and look like the teeth of a saw (is that the correct English term for it, sawtooth?) in Eastern.
Another apparently very useful feature is the patterning of the lores: Western shows a very uniformly patterned, greyish head with a darker cap. Eastern however shows a blackish lore, connecting the eye to the bill, and a prominent white stripe above it and - less clearly defined - also below.

It seems that these features are valid - if indeed they are valid at all - for all age classes of both forms and can be used both in spring and fall / autumn.


What to look for - a short summary
So, when you are confronted with a Solitary Sandpiper and you actually care to find out which form it is you're looking at, focus on the following:

Proportions: slim and long or chubby and short
Bill length and form: long and drooping or not-so-long and more straight
Bare part colouration: bright yellow(ish) with a clearly bi-coloured bill or less bright and more uniform
Colouration of the lores: uniformly patterned like the rest of the head or with black-and-white stripes
Pattern of the tertials: row of rectangular, slim lines along the edge or triangular "saw teeth"

That's as far as I'll venture and I will leave the rest to the experts. Surely there are other and possibly more secure ways of telling them apart, maybe voice or primary/wing projection or whatever. But that's not for me to write about, that's best left to those with field experience and first-hand knowledge.

But for the time being, that's what I will go for here in Michigan this spring, so

bring on the Solitaries!