Is this a crane flying across a bamboo marsh in China? Nope! It's a black-necked stilt flying across the San Joaquin marsh in Irvine. But very pretty either way.
Lunchtime Photo
6 thoughts on “Lunchtime Photo”
Comments are closed.
Cats, charts, and politics
That's a Black-necked Stilt, which is related to sandpipers but is not a sandpiper itself. Stilts and avocets are in the family Recurvirostridae, whereas sandpipers are in Scolopacidae. Both families are in the order Charadriiformes, which includes a lot of other families, such as gulls and terns.
And I believe the plant is spiny rush, Juncus acutus. (If not that, it's some other kind of Juncus.)
An avocet! That's what I was thinking of. But actually a stilt, eh?
In non-breeding plumage, American Avocets are also black and white, but the pattern is different. In summer, however, the head and neck is a rusty orange. Their legs are pale blue-gray rather than pink, and they have a bill that turns upward at the tip, unlike the very straight bill of a stilt. (You can actually tell the sex of an avocet by the length of the bill and by how much it turns up at the end.)
American Avocets are uncommon breeders in southern California, but not that hard to find. There are several reports from around the San Joaquin Marsh from this June, including recently hatched chicks.
No matter, China will end-up wanting to control how it squawks just the same. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-57647418
I would have cropped the white whatever it is on the upper-right out of the photo. It's overpowering the stilt.