Rare Sighting!

I was thrilled to discover that my sighting of four Snowy Plovers last week at Natural Bridges State beach was a rare occurrence.  I had sent the information to the San Francisco Bay Bird Observatory after looking at their website and seeing that any information on banded Snowy Plover sightings in the area was needed. Based on the colors of the bands around their legs, they were able to determine from where exactly they came from.  Here is what I learned.

OB:BP is a female, banded as a chick at Salinas State Beach in '09.

PR:AA was banded as a chick in '10 at the same location.

OY:RO was banded in 2011 as a chick at Moss Landing Salt Ponds.

I managed to take a LOT of images which I will be posting the best of to my website, but here is one I particularly like.  It was the chick that had been banded at Salinas State Beach in 2009:)