Hi All,
Like Bill, I, too, was most interested in what the Purple Sandpiper seems to be scoring with considerable regularity at that juncture of the Blue River and Dillon Reservoir. I wanted to go out and scoop up a bucket of substrate in the worst way but, of course, did not want to disturb the bird or birders.
My first thought about Bill's picture was some sort of aquatic insect larva such as certain of the Crane Flies (family Tipulidae). Some tipulid larvae are fairly big and wormlike in dimensions but the worm in the photo looks too long. Then I remembered the worms present in the stream where the Bobcat Ridge Natural Area woodcock probed west of Loveland the past two Januarys. I showed Bill's picture to my "go-to" guy on just about everything involving arthropods, Dr. Boris Kondratieff at CSU, and he also felt the worm appears to be one of the aquatic worms in the family Lumbriculidae. Although related, they are now considered separate from our familiar earthworms in the family Lumbricidae. This is not a 100% certain ID but we both think it is correct.
After the bird leaves, I just may go up there and poke around. When I watched the bird going steadily, contentedly about its feeding it appeared similar to migrant passerines we see at traps such as Crow Valley or Chico which stay for several days adding fat. That would be my guess, that the bird will stay perhaps until the next severe weather and move on. But wouldn't it be neat if it stayed until spring? At any rate, an amazing bird for our state, detected by equally amazing alertness by the Bushong Brothers.
Thanks, Bill, for the cool photo.
Dave Leatherman
Sent: Tuesday, December 20, 2016 8:32 AM
To: cobirds@googlegroups.com
Subject: [cobirds] Purple Sandpiper food question
COBirders,
If you are a stream ecologist, biology professor, or in graduate school in biology or related fields, or if you aren’t and have a reasonable comment about the I.D. of this “roundworm” the Purple Sandpiper is pulling out of Blue River where it flows into Dillon Res. in Summit County, I would appreciate your comments.
Thank you,
Bill Maynard
Colorado Springs
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