Wordless Wednesday: Calaveras Big Trees State Park’s North Grove
Again, many thanks to classmate Elisabeth for providing her notes & permission to reproduce them here, as I was out on a medical on Oct 31!
Joe’s class Wednesday, October 31st, 2007, pg. 182
All the rare stints have unwebbed toes, contrary to Western and Semipalmated Sandpipers
Red-necked Stint
Old name: “Rufous-necked Sandpiper”
Asian species, breed in far eastern Siberia and in Alaska on the Seward Peninsula and locally by Barrow on the north coast
Winter in Australia and South-east Asia
All CA records are of breeding adults
Bill quite short but more pointed than in Semipalmated Sandpiper
Overall shape similar to Semipalmated Sandpiper but more attenuated
Bill slimmer, finer tipped, a little shorter
Rather short legs
Longer wings than Little Stint
Long primary projection (Little Stint also reasonably long primary projection)
Long tail
Breeding plumage
Clean red on face almost up to the eye and on most of the throat
Chin and part of throat may be white
Some red almost all the way round the back of the neck
Necklace of gray spots under the red, then pure white further down
Amount of red variable
Fine streaking on sides of breast
Sanderling can be mistaken for a Red-necked Stint. Sanderling is larger, has a broader wing stripe and lacks a rear toe. The red on the head is not clean but has spots in it, the white under it does not have spots.
Little Stint in breeding plumage is another possible confusion species, but it also has the spots in the red, not under it.
No records of juveniles in NA outside Alaska
Very similar to juvenal Little Stint
It used to be thought that these birds are indistinguishable in juvenal plumage, but the Russian ornithologist Tomkovitch pointed out differences (in Siberia both species occur together)
The centers of the wing coverts and tertials are gray on Red-necked Stint but black on Little Stint, thus there is a gray wing panel contrasting against the dark scapulars in Red-necked Stint, resembling Western Sandpiper
Red-necked Stint juvenile has only a few white spots on the back, they can form a faint mantle-V, not a contrasting, well defined one
Little rusty fringes on tertials
Bill can look quite like Semipalmated Sandpiper
Absence of forked supercilium, on Little Stint the supercilium tends to split and forked in front of the eye, Red-necked can show a trace of it though
Lacks heavily dark streaked patches of orange on either side of breast that are characteristic for Little Stint, more of smudgy breast band with faint blurry streaks
So it can be readily distinguished from Little Stint, but not from Western and Semipalmated Sandpipers
It does not make sense that all CA records are of adults
Juveniles are more likely to come out of their range
Looks in some ways almost intermediate between Western and Semipalmated Sandpipers
But people have been looking for a long time, every single presumed juvenal Red-necked Stint was eventually determined to be something different
Little Stint
Breeds in the arctic of Europe and Asia
Winters in Africa and east to India
Quite a handful of records in CA, all of juvenal birds
Pot-bellied bird
Short bill, slightly drooped, a little like Western, but shorter
Relatively long legs
Dark crown
Crown dark in middle of head (Red-necked paler and more even crown)
Capped appearance with some gray on back of neck
Bold dark centers to all scapulars and tertials
At side of breast bold buffy gray patch with dark spots
Bill somewhat more tapered
Snappy dazzling looking little bird, more likely to draw attention than Red-necked
More of a split supercilium
Juvenile bold, bright scapular and mantle-Vs
(but mantle-V variable character, can appear and disappear on a bird while you are watching it)
Dark centers to tertials with bold contrasting rusty fringing
Wing panel does not contrast with scapulars, feathers dark centered and boldly fringed all over
Long primary projection
Long-toed Stint
Close relative of Least Sandpiper
Asiatic bird
Extraordinarily rare anywhere in NA
Occasionally on Aleutian Islands, Bering Island
Only one record in CA
Quite bright
Very rusty, especially on scapulars
Legs yellowish green
Legs long
Toes long
More upright posture, does not crouch in way of Least
Short bill with point
Bill slight pale base to lower mandible, visible at close range, rare to be seen on Least
No obvious primary projection
Subtle difference in crown:
Dark crown comes down to top of bill, separates out supercilium on either side, sweeps round the supercilium connecting to the gray lore stripes in the form of a J (works both in adults and juveniles), lore stripes not as contrastingly dark as in Least
Occasionally Least Sandpipers appear to have a dark forehead
Indication of split supercilium, Joe has occasionally seen it also on Least
Split supercilium = cap has outer white stripe at sides
Lower scapulars and wing coverts fringed in whitish gray, not rusty
More contrasting appearance compared to Least
Juvenile similar to breeding, as in Least
Diagnostic white fringes to wing coverts, broken at tips
Wing coverts duller, forming a contrasting wing panel
Temminck’s Stint
No pictures
No record in CA
Legs greenish yellow
Hooded appearance
Quite plain face
White eye ring
Could be confused with Least Sandpiper
Straighter bill
Longer primary projection
Long wings and legs
White outer tail feathers contrast with central tail feathers
Caution, this is difficult to make out on the flying bird
Problem: what is white?
Gray outer tailfeathers in other Calidris also contrasting to darker center tail feathers
Juvenile plumage distinctive
Feathers with plain center, buff fringes, dark subterminal fringes (as in Red Knot)
Breeding plumage mottled appearance: some of the scapulars and coverts have black centers and dull rufous edges
Call somewhat like Black Turnstone prrrr, prrr
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