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Posted by Rafael A. Galvez on 20:49:41 04/01/10
As suggested during my conversations with Doug Gochfeld, the Bar-tailed Godwit at Flamingo is of the "baueri" subspecies. This was only an informed guess based on the predominance of Asian vagrants sighted in the northeast. Additionally, one of the photos of the godwit taken by Doug included a wing partially open, showing barring beneath rather than white.
The recently posted pictures in this board help put suppositions to rest!
The nicely taken photos by Trey Mitchell and Wil Domke (4-1-10)prove this bird is of the far-eartern "baueri" race (Eastern Russia and Alaska), not the nominate Limosa lapponica lapponica found throughout Western Europe.
The photo posted by Wil clearly shows the dark and barred lower back and upper rump of "baeuri" not the white "wedge" of "lapponica".
Trey s flight photos show the barred axillaries typical of baeuri; lapponica would have shown light to white axillaries.
Nicely done.
It is worth noticing too that baueri tends to be the larger of the subspecies.
This bird has flown a long distance from home.
Cheers
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