Your identification please!

I enjoy taking pictures of flowers and wildlife. I generally take a picture because I like the subject and think that it will (or might) make a nice addition to someones wall, web page or commercial endeavour.

I have not been able to label some of my shots with a good name because I have not known what type of flower or animal it was. Consequently, many of my pictures are labled "yellow flower", "another yellow flower" and "bird" or "black and white bird".

For Christmas, I was given a gift that was really handy. The Complete Illustrated Encyclopedia of North American Birds. It is not just a picture list of birds. It has sections on how to identify bird types by their characteristics (long skinny legs for wading in water) and sections for different environments. The entries for each bird are also helpful in identifying specific birds. For example, if the bird you are trying to identify is black on the top and white underneath, and the entry for a similar-looking bird states that the "Stilt sandpiper ... is ... a pale buffish-gray bird with a white eye stripe", then you know you have not found it. Yet.

A little more looking and I found that "the Black-necked stilt ... has a black neck, crown and face giving it a masked appearance." I think that sounds an awful lot like this guy:



What do you say? Any experienced birders out there that can help me confirm this or point me to another name? Another shot of these birds is in my photo gallery.

From the photographic perspective, I really wish I had a longer lens than 200mm, but I still like the way part of this fellow's reflection is on the other side of that grassy patch.

Update: Nikon D60, f/5.6, 1/400. You can usually click my pictures to go to my photo gallery for additional info if I forget to include it here.