Hi Tweets,

Mike Patterson writes:

>This stint gives us all a really good opportunity to see how the
>scientific method is supposed to work.

As opposed to the 'educated guess' method I've been using up to now. Make a
guess and hope like hell the science is there to support it. '-)

>This bird has rather striking yellow/green legs. The 3 stints that
>are *supposed* to have yellow legs are Temminck's Stint, Long-toed
>Stint and Least Sandpiper. If the bird fails (because of other
>characters) to meet the criteria for a yellow legged stint then we
>must conclude that we are dealing with an aberration (however
>minor).

Actually not if it's a Semi, Mike. Unlike the coast further south--'cause
they hang a Kansas-and-Gulf-States-bound left between Vancouver BC and
Everett WA and take about a third of the Westerns with 'em--we get adult and
juv SemiSand each as a fairly common to common species in the southbound
migration each year, and local shorebird junkies have
become--necessarily--quite familiar with their plumage features (one day at
Iona about ten years ago, I counted 212 with more in the vegetation on just
*one* of the four ponds--they actually outnumbered the Westerns for a few
days! Currently at Iona there's about 30-50 Semi juvs minimum with the 000's
Westerns) ranging from fairly bright rufous-morph individuals (2-5) to birds
so pale as to seem in Basic plumage until one sees the very subdued juvenile
pattern. At a site like the settling ponds at Iona Is., one can study at
will a wide range of plumage and molt, size and behavior, and
Western/Semi/Least comparisons at very close range. Like their juvenal
plumage, Semi leg-color is, for whatever reason--genetic, dietary,
whatever--*quite* variable, from pale greys, grey-greens and olive
grey-greens--and once in a while, yellow and yellow-green--to blackish.

>Aberrations make things difficult, because one can dismiss contrary
>opinions by invoking the aberrant hypothesis to any character.
>I found myself doing this when I read the hypotheses conflicting
>with my own this morning. And I'll be suggesting a variation on
>the aberrant hypothesis before I'm finished here. Invoking the
>aberrant hypothesis must be done with extreme caution.

After years of watching these Semis, I've come to realise that Semi
leg-color beyond what a book says it should be is variation of individuals,
not an aberration against a species type, and thinking about this, I'm
beginning to wonder if there aren't distinct populations--not races--of
Semis, each with slightly differing characteristics. Some of these rufous
and intermediate-morph juv Semis'll drive ya nuts, in sort of a nice way,
partly because they don't fit the assumed paradigm of a grey or grey-brown
bird with subdued markings, and partly because they're so hard to separate
from some Little or bright Red-necked juvs. But truly, individual leg-color
is quite as variable as individual plumage in SemiSandpiper. All one can say
with certainty is that most SemiSandpipers have dark legs; the rest don't.
Whether the variation is permanent, seasonal, age-related, dietary, genetic
etc., I don't know.

(snip discussion of film characteristics)

>I think the bird is too long-legged and long necked for Little
>Stint (and I've seen 100's in Africa).

Prater, Marchant and Vuorinen in their 1977 book 'Guide to the
identification and ageing of Holarctic Waders', Jonsson & Grant in the July
1984 British Birds article 'Identification of stints and peeps', and Paulson
in his 1993 book 'Shorebirds of the Pacific Northwest' give the following
juv tarsal lengths, range and mean, in mm:

PMV Jonsson, Grant Paulson

LITTLE STINT

M 20-23 (21.0) 19.8-23.2 (21.2) 21 (sexes combined)
F 20-22 (21.5) 19.7-23.6 (21.7)

SEMIPALMATED SANDPIPER

M 20-22 (20.9) 19.8-22.8 (21.3) 22 "
F 20-22 (20.7) 21.0-23.5 (22.1)

WESTERN SANDPIPER

M 21-22 (21.7) 20.8-23.0 (21.8) 23 "
F 21-24 (22.7) 22.1-25.0 (23.4)

RED-NECKED STINT

M 16-20 (17.3) 17.9-20.8 (19.7) 20 "
F 18-21 (19.1) 18.9-21.1 (19.9)

Well, everyone but Red-necked and female Western plays in the same ballpark
(Red-necked at shortstop? '-). Perhaps the eastern Arctic Little Stints
average longer legs. We had an Alternate-plumaged Little Stint at Iona for a
few days in early June 1992. It stood as tall as the Westerns with a smaller
body. One observer said it looked like an orange Least on stilts; I can
attest personally to the simile's fitness. As far as being too long-necked,
hard to say--any bird on alert might show these poses.

Speaking of 'long': ran across something in the small print in the
biometrics section of Jonsson & Grant's article, that female juv Semi wings
are shorter than those of juv males, so would have much less primary
projection. If this bird is a Semi, then with the amount of primary
extension beyond the longest tertial this bird shows, it's bound to be a
male. I'd wondered about this, as some of the Iona SemiSandpipers showed
little to no projection. Compensation: she gets the bigger, longer bill.

>I'm also not really
>impressed with the plumage regarding Little Stint. It's just
>not striking enough. I know this is a wishy-washy jizzy sort of
>complaint, but it's mine and I'm sticking with it.

Not all Little's are bright and shiny, Mike; some are pale and subdued and
have been designated a distinct morph. The best discussion I've found so far
about the Semi/Red-necked/Little schmozzle is the species accounts in
Dennis' book. I'd love to be able to relocate my copy of Dick Veit's
American Birds article--lent or lost for years--to see what the discussion
was there. I don't know what the proportion of grey-morph Little is compared
with the 'classic' form (I'd love the coincidence if it's the same as
rufous-morph Semis). I think unless Dennis can answer that, some European or
Asian source will have to weigh in here to this discussion.

>The general size, the long-leggedness, the bill with the blob at
>the end all make me want to stay with Western Sandpiper, but I
>can see Semipalmated Sandpiper as a possibility as well.

*Especially* with such a blunt-ended bill. Jonsson & Grant again, on
Semipalmated bill structure: "Bill typically short (1 1/2-2 times loral
distance), straight, deep-based and obviously blunt-tipped in profile, with
often marked bill-expansion (but slight or lacking in some)..." Phot 1 shows
a bill that fits that description very closely. That, coupled with the broad
base and virtually no narrowing throughout its length until the distal
swelling, would serve to eliminate Western Sandpiper, with other features,
from contention. Even on a small-billed juv male Western, the bill looks
finer than the stouter bill of the mystery bird; a female's bill would show
definite narrowing. As well, if one looks at the juv Little Stint phot at
the bottom of p. 258 in Dennis' book and examines the side streaking on that
bird and compare it to the mystery bird, one can see the definite grey
stripes on a buff ground referred to as one of the diagnostic features of
Little Stint in Jonsson & Grant's BritBirds article, a feature clearly
lacking on the mystery stint. The mystery bird's breast-side streaking is
more characteristic in its diffuseness of Semipalmated that Western, which
usually has much more clearly-defined side-streaking. The mystery stint
shows very little contrast between scaps and wing-coverts where most juv
Westerns show a definite contrast, the wing-coverts forming an almost
featureless grey wing panel.

Speaking of jizz, having seen (when I try a thumbnail count), holy nellie,
literally tens of millions of Western Sandpipers and somewhere between five
and ten thousand Semipalmated Sandpipers over the last 25 years in Vancouver
BC, I'll make my own wishy-washy jizzy stand: if I saw this bird walking
around on one of the settling ponds at Iona--and whatever it eventually
turns out to be--I'd think SemiSandpiper before Western (and to keep Truth's
banner free of stain, I should confess that as usual with an unusual bird,
Hope would triumph over Experience no matter how brief a time it got to
savor its victory: I'd think Long-toed Stint, then Little Stint, before
either).

> But I
>feel very confident in eliminating all Eurasian stints from the
>list of possibilities.

Even though a little less confident, I'd agree with you, Mike. Little's
really the only other possibility beyond SemiSandpiper or Western, and I
think we've seen it off.

Michael Price The Sleep of Reason Gives Birth to Monsters
Vancouver BC Canada -Goya
mprice at mindlink.net