January 30, 2020

Wisconsin's Unofficial CNC

Hello fellow Wisconsinites! The City Nature Challenge is a bioblitz-style competition around the globe to find and document plants, fungi, wildlife, and pretty much anything wild. Unfortunately there is no official CNC in Wisconsin this year but we'll still be able to have an unofficial event and with help from mkkennedy our project will be included in the cold climate CNC umbrella project. The selected area for our CNC is going to be the Rock River Watershed in Wisconsin, starting in Horicon NWR and snaking it's way down to Janesville and Beloit near the IL border. Even if you're not in the selected region you can still help identify the observations or travel for a couple days visiting some of the bio-diverse areas of the Rock River watershed observing nature yourself. Here's a link to the project which shows a map of the selected region; https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/wisconsin-s-rock-river-watershed-unofficial-cnc
The dates for this year's CNC is Friday, April 24th through Monday, the 27th.
Thanks for taking a look at this and I hope Y'all can participate, every observation counts!
--Sam

@raymie @jackaboy68 @dlcarterksu @rayrob @wi_mostly @lumenal @jackc210 @aaroncarlson @driftlessroots @winature @jeffcramer @ehjalmarson

Posted on January 30, 2020 03:58 PM by sam727 sam727 | 6 comments | Leave a comment

December 24, 2018

Least and Semipalmated Sandpipers, how to tell them apart

These are two of the most confusing peeps on the East Coast… Both are small shorebirds smaller than a Killdeer. They each have short bills and short legs. Now lets get to the exciting part, how to ID them.

They each live in the US. and winter either on coastline or farther south in the Bahamas/ Central America.* The Least Sandpiper is widespread across the US. while the Semipalmated is Midwest-East coast.

Least’s have yellow legs while Semi’s have grayish black legs. That is a key piece to telling the two species apart. Least’s also have “Snipe Stripes”** on their back.
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/19045515 {Least Sandpiper, Only in breeding plumage they have "Snipe Stripes"}

https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/18558157 {Semipalmated Sandpiper}

Semi’s typically have longer bills than Least’s and a bit more down curved making it look droopy. Semi’s average paler than Least’s in color.

Another great ID key is Least’s are normally inland. This is not always true but they prefer the mudflats while Semi’s stick to the coast more often.

I hoped you learned something through this and good birding!

*Ref https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Semipalmated_Sandpiper/maps-range

**Ref Shorebird ID course, Bird academy, Cornell lab

Posted on December 24, 2018 12:24 AM by sam727 sam727 | 1 comment | Leave a comment

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