[cobirds] Re: Lake Dillon Purple Sandpiper parking lot. Summit County.

Please do not feed or "help out" this wonderful first-time visitor. It is doing just fine on it's own, if it's not getting enough to eat here it probably would have moved on by now. The number of worms, midges, mayflys, caddisflys and other aquatic invertebrates living under the water would astound you.  I had a job once where I  counted over 10,000 teeny little critters from about  a quart of sediment taken from the bottom of a stream. This sandpiper is probing the mud for those live animals and most likely "feels" or senses them through it's long bill. This guy's dinner plate is the muck and mud just inches under the water. There is a chance it may not even recognize the dried inanimate meal worms lining the shore as food.

I can imagine a scenario where instead of the Sandpiper a  Robin finds the mealworms, tells it's buddies, and then there's a small flock of them chowing down near the Sandpiper. Next, a Goshawk from it's perch up on the hill above Hwy 9 sees it's lunch of Robins going to town on the mealworms at the shoreline.... Goshawk swoops in, Robins scatter and the hawk makes a quick change of menu to Sandpiper supper! What? it could happen.

David Wade
Ft Collins CO

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