Common Sandpiper

     As near as I can figure, this little feller is called a common sandpiper.  If anyone out there can identify it as something else (don't tell me that it's a giraffe, because I'll know it isn't), please let me know.

    I saw it walking across rocks and along the grass near the park next to Shuang Shi Creek.  At low tide, I see a lot of smaller, but otherwise similar, birds tramping about the mudflats nearby.

     In case you're wondering about the green net material, it was placed there to keep the rocks from being washed away.  The rocks were placed there to keep the soil from being washed away.

     For more information on the common sandpiper, click here.

Gray Heron

      It has been more than a little difficult to get close enough to a gray heron to get a clear photo of one.  I've seen them in rice paddies, mangrove swamps, and along mudflats.
     The one on this page was going for a stroll near along mudflats near the Guandu ferry.

     Here are two more photos of a gray heron.  The first is a zoom of the second.  I photographed that bird near Shuang Shi Creek, about a half mile west of the place that the creek empties into the Danshui River.

     I finally got a clear photo of a gray heron on February 2, 2012.  Along the biking trail, about a mile or two from Danshui, I came across an irrigation pond that sometimes plays host to black-crowned night herons, egrets, and an occasional gray heron.  

     For more information on gray herons, click here.

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