Thanks everyone. Shorebirds can drive you crazy. They are either beak down in the mud or sleeping with the bill covered making positive ID difficult. These pics were taken at Bolsa Chica, San Joaquin and Back Bay Refuges. The best thing apart from the weather is that there are a dozen or so sites within a 20 mile radius providing coastal, river and canyon habitats and the migration patterns offer new birds every 3 months or so.
I don't know what the larger dark birds are but because they are next to the Westerns the size may be magnified. I'm surprized to have omitted the Least sandpipers as they were numerous but not often mixed with the Westerns. The Refuges print frequency of sightings by season on their websites so you can get an idea of what you might see.
