Image from the Biodiversity Heritage Library.
Contributed by Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, University of California, Berkeley.
| www.biodiversitylibrary.org
Transcription
J PLayers
1975
Calidris melanotos
near FAA building on road to IBD#1, Pt Barrow, Alaska
7 June
2130 - heard first pectoral hooting, or what I surmised to be so. a low whoo00000,
an undulating call ____, flock of 5 88 by road.
8 June
8 pectoral displaying over area to N of Suthasian building: flying low, hanging
rock sac (from behind, when the bird flies by, it looks like a scroton). the bird
flies a few feet off the ___ ground almost dragging its neck. It
occasionally hoots
Grid 2, by Similisian building, Pt Barrow Alaska
12 June
0910 air -1,0 region mixed flock (8+9) of 8 pectorals feeding in recently erupted
pond area of berry Artotila. 1025 - considerable melanotos 8 activity since I began
working quite close 8 displaying in (7,0)-(7,2) region. 1025 - 8 pect. in (3,0)
region flew toward me, this 'scroton hanging'; flew up to (9,1) shooting above pond at
(9,1), began to land but fluttered on a few meters to supplement Dunlin. Pect hooted,
landed in now standing there. the inflation of its pectoral sac forces it breast feathers
to stand out, revealing the dark basal areas of the shafts + causing a distinct
pattern to be formed around the base of the chest, in which the demarcation between
upperlower areas is already sharp
[illegible] (or whatever)
It appears that this fellow has a display mound, a ridge, in (9,1), just to W of 9.1 stake
along road
9,1
1050: 8 in (7,10) unit another pectoral display mound. 8 near leg. 8
swooped past me displaying within 10'. As it hoots the bird jerks as the bill opens producing a
striking head movement and yanking the neck thrust arc. It continually jerks up and back at 3/sec
twice per second as is the hoot oscillation 1108 - in (9,0) region: again 8 and supplementing
Dunlin: the alpine 8+q were extracting when 8 flew in upon them, chasing them off.
(9,10): 1125 8 and going at other 8.