Tweets:

I am posting this on behalf of Dave Richarson (wohlheter2 at aol.com), please
send any off-line replies to him.

Here is a link to a photo of what I believe to be a Stint (Red-necked by my
reckoning, but Little Stint by others) seen at Grays Harbor, WA on May 2,
2008: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=3919&l=1b43e&id=1068148841

I did not see the bird foraging, but a number of others did. It was high
tide and the bird was about 40 or 50 feet away from us. Marian Bailey, the
Nisqually Wildlife Refuge biologist and a number of others saw it probing
the sand with a large group of western sandpipers. Those who I questioned
said it looked like a western sandpiper except for the fact that it was
dramatically red on the head, nape, mantle and foreneck. Its belly was
white.

By the time the message was passed along the boardwalk to me the bird had
settled down to sleep with the other western sandpipers. It was easy to
find because of the color and many of us got to view it in our scopes and we
got the two photos. After about 10 or 15 minutes it flushed and to my
knowledge it was not seen again that day or the next two days of the
festival. Of course we had at least 20,000 western sandpipers to wade
through.

I showed my photo to Charlie Wright, who knew nothing about the bird at the
time, and Charlie thought it looked more like a Little Stint. Of course
everyone wanted to see a more complete photo. This one looks like those
photo quizes in the Birding magazine. I hope my photo might shed some
additional information. It doesn't show details of feather patterns etc.
but it is dramatically bright, looking more like red-necked stints I saw in
Nome, AK. That was Marian's initial opinion as well. Could you give us any
help with this?


Bob Stallcop
bstallcop at seanet.com
(425) 922-2300
Maple Valley Heights (Renton) WA.