Hi all,
May 24, 2013. 8:30am
Guy McCaskie and Elizabeth Cooper found a HUDSONIAN GODWIT at Kershaw Pond this morning. The bird is a female. It is feeding quite successfully so it may well stay for the rest of this day but the odds are very high that it will take to the air and be VERY far from here when it lands again somewhere in Canada or Alaska as they are known to fly over a thousand miles at a time in migration!
These birds nest in the extreme north and spend their winter in South America. They look similar to Marbled Godwit which are common along the shore of the Salton Sea right now. There are no other Godwit on the Kershaw pond with this one though.
This small pond in on the east side of Kershaw Road, just north of the Alamo River, a few miles north of Rutherford Road and about half a mile south of Titsworth Road. This road carries a lot of farm and truck traffic so please get as far off the pavement as possible.
Here is what I have been able to gather in limited time so this is NOT the absolute facts! Hudsonian Godwit sightings in California “average” about once per year. There may only be two records for Imperial County and one of those records was of a bird that was found dead. All spring records in California have occurred between May 9th and May 31st.
See ya at the sea………………………
Here is the eBird report for my one hour visit
Kershaw Rd. pond, Imperial, US-CA
May 24, 2013 9:05 AM - 10:11 AM
Protocol: Stationary
Comments: Submitted from BirdLog NA for Android v1.7
23 species
Gadwall 2
Mallard 14
Cinnamon Teal 8
Redhead 1
Double-crested Cormorant 7
Great Blue Heron 1
Snowy Egret 3
Cattle Egret 1
Green Heron 1
White-faced Ibis 3
American Coot 6
Killdeer 2
Black-necked Stilt 17
American Avocet 8
Spotted Sandpiper 1
Hudsonian Godwit 1 Found by Guy McCaskie and Elizabeth Cooper.
Eurasian Collared-Dove 2
White-winged Dove 3
Common Ground-Dove 1
Northern Rough-winged Swallow 2
Cliff Swallow 15
Song Sparrow 1
Red-winged Blackbird 50
View this checklist online at http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist?subID=S14226972
This report was generated automatically by eBird v3 (http://ebird.org)