These birds are almost in the same plane. I don't think this is an optical
illusion, just a very large individual. If you measure from bill tip to
tail these are almost the same length. Birds of the World says weight
varies from 22 to 35 grams, so they can get pretty chunky.
On Fri, Sep 26, 2025 at 10:07 PM 'Glen Tepke' via mbbirds <
<mbbirds...> wrote:
> Could this be an example of the optical illusion created by magnifying
> optics that makes more distant objects appear to be larger than closer
> objects of the same actual size? To see an illustration of this illusion,
> put a rectangular object like a piece of paper on the floor and look at it
> with bins from several feet away. The more distant edge of the paper will
> appear to be longer than the closer edge even though both edges are the
> same length.
>
> If you saw the larger bird in front of the other and it still looked
> larger, then never mind.
>
> Good birding,
> Glen Tepke
> Santa Cruz
>
>
> On 9/26/2025 7:48 PM, Abram Fleishman wrote:
>
> After a fair bit of debate I am still confused by the shorebird I saw
> yesterday. It was the size of a Dunlin but had all the other field marks of
> a juvenile Western Sandpiper. Photos here if you want to weight in!
> https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/316671157 >
>
> -Abram
>
> Sent from my phone
>
>
> On Thu, Sep 25, 2025 at 18:26 Abram Fleishman <abfleishman...>
> wrote:
>
>> There’s an interesting shorebird at the trestle bike path over the San
>> Lorenzo near Main Breach right now. Probably just a dunlin with a couple
>> of western sandpipers, but it’s a fair bit bigger than the western
>> sandpipers and very gray with a droopy bill.
>>
>> -Abram
>>
>> Sent from my phone
>>
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