Round Cedar Lake

I chased an Asian vagrant, a Lesser Sand-Plover on Tuesday October 4th. The bird had been found by Jason and Chuck who did a tour of wet spots on the Rez in the Flagstaff - Leupp - Meteor Crater area on Sunday 2nd. This was a first state record of this bird - that I had seen in Australia in 2009. This was a twitch for many with birders coming in from all over - including a Big Year birder from South Dakota!

Lesser Sand-Plover

I arrived at 12:30 to find 7 people waiting for the bird to reappear. It had disappeared into the scrub shortly after 11:00. The bird returned at 1:30 having been flushed by a hunting male Northern Harrier, and the bird then foraged close by for the next 45 minutes before taking a nap just a short distance away. By then Gary, Troy, Chuck and Anita had all arrived and from the list serve it was clear that tohers came and went during the afternoon.