Semipalmated Sandpiper

I've been staring at these pictures for some time since I took them last Friday at Coburg Peninsula during our trip to Victoria. I've been trying to convince myself that the bird is a Semipalmated Sandpiper and not a Western Sandpiper, but I am not very experienced with Western Sandpipers and have never identified a Semipalimated Sandpiper.
They have been commonly reported on OBOL recently so I have been hoping to see one. Trouble is, they look almost identical to Western Sandpipers. The biggest difference is the bill. Westerns have a longer bill that droops down a little at the tip. Semipalmated's bill is shorter and not as drooped. Semis also have a grayer, less rufous back than Westerns, but with the variations of coloring within each species, they kind of blend together.
It took quite some time before I started getting more confident on the identification. Then I got the idea to try a Yellowlegs identification technique and compared the length of the bill to the length of the head. Sure enough, the bill on this bird is clearly proportionally shorter than its head compared to the bill/head proportion of Western Sandpipers. So, I'm now about 99% sure of the ID.
I found three of these Sandpipers together on the harbor side of Coburg Peninsula. They were on a small mudflat and had enough trust to let me get in close. As a matter fact, the top picture is of one walking right past me as I was kneeling on the beach. All three scooted right past me. I practically screwed myself into the sand as I followed them with my camera. :-)

European Starling - Juvenile Molt

I'm getting a bit behind on posting. I've still got some images from weeks ago that I want to post. Reviewing all the pictures and post processing can take a lot of time, so sometimes I put up the "easier", "quicker" image to get a post up leaving some of the tougher (sometimes better images) images behind.
Such is the case with tonight's post. I only got a couple pictures of this juvenile European Starling, so it doesn't take long to decide which to post, work it up and upload. It's an interesting picture as the juvenile is beginning to molt into adult basic plumage, evidenced by the mostly brown coloring with the start of black, spotted, adult feathers emerging on its belly. But I have some great pictures of Semipalmated Plovers, Western Sandpipers, Sanderlings and Heermann's Gulls from a couple of weeks ago and some nice pictures of what I think are Semipalmated Sandpipers from this past week that I have been pondering. Sometimes quantity can be overwhelming. :-)

Rock Pigeon

I saw many more Rock Pigeons in non-urban areas in the Victoria area. Even Coburg Peninsula was full of them.

Brown-headed Cowbird - Juvenile

Yesterday evening I got out and did my first serious birding in the Victoria area. Based on web recommendations I decided to drive to Esquimalt Lagoon and Coburg Peninsula. There wasn't a large variety of birds, but there were a lot of birds; predominantly California Bulls, Canada Geese, Brewer's Blackbirds and Mute Swans.
The most interesting bird I found had to be the juvenile Brown-headed Cowbird, or at least I'm pretty sure that is what it is. There was an interesting discussion just last week on this bird as it is one of the birds most often misidentified. One of the reasons is that Brown-headed Cowbirds lay their eggs in the nests of other birds and let them raise the young. Therefore it is unusual to see a juvenile with its parents, making it hard to identify by association. In fact, I did not see any adult Brown-headed Cowbirds, the nearest birds to the juvenile were some Brewer's Blackbirds. See more info on this behavior at Cornell's All About Birds.
Also, see an interesting ID article on BirdFellow.