An another one-more Black-bellied Plover pic

I thought I had posted this great grooming shot that shows off some of the covert feathers often not easily seen (though when this species flies, the whitish rump is evident and helpful for identification).
SeEtta

One more Black-bellied Plover pic

As much as I would have liked, I did not find any American Golden Plovers in this flock. The Black-bellied Plovers have much larger bills and a lack of yellow tones (except on juveniles) that is evident in these pics.

This additional close-up photo shows the coloration on their feathers during Basic plumage pretty distinctly. The only thing I cannot provide (at least directly) is their very distinctive call but you can listen to it on the All About Birds website.
SeEtta

Black-bellied Plovers at Blue Lake

Today was a beautiful, mild fall day with temps going into the 70's throughout the lower elevation parts of southeast Colorado. I drove down to the La Junta/Las Animas areas to see what birds were about. At Blue Lake (aka Adobe Creek Lake, which lies in part in both Las Animas and Kiowa Counties)I ran into a flock of 12 Black-bellied Plovers evidently making a stop-over on their migration south.

I really almost ran into them as I was driving on the canal bank from the dam when I spotted them only about 40 feet away. They looked as surprised to see me as I was to see them (though this may just be an artifact of the size of their eyes which are large proportionally to their heads, giving that "deer in the headlights" appearance). I stopped and stayed quite still. Though they moved away at first, they soon accommodated to my presence and approached to within about 25-30 feet as they went about their foraging.The lower pic is an enlargement of the head of the bird in the upper pic. Though birds in juvenal plumage are similar, I believe this is an adult in Basin plumage (though there may be a few feathers that have not been replaced from Alternate plumage-this plumage stuff does get rather esoteric). More of these later, SeEtta