ML69387601

Age

Not specified

Sex

Not specified

Observation details

First spotted by Sally Marrone in our group, who called out, "Look at that one with the red face!" Here is an excerpt of our description submitted to WBRC: "All our scopes focused on a very distinctive small sandpiper feeding in a group of peeps. The bird clearly was not a Least, Western, or Semipalmated Sandpiper, all of whom fed in the area. It immediately stood out as something different, with a big rufous-red face. We studied the bird for at least 10 minutes (9:20 – 9:30 a.m.) in great light with overcast skies and no shadows, sometimes as close as 50 feet as it picked on the mud and dried Ulva right in front of us. All eleven of us had a chance to study the bird through spotting scopes from 20 to 60 power. The bird had extensive rufous around the cheeks, throat, and neck, extending a little onto the upper breast, almost giving it a ruddy hooded look. The rufous area was unstreaked, other than a few darker smudges at the division between the rufous and the white on the chest. The rufous coloration didn’t go down as far on the breast as some of the field guides picture, which made me question it at first, but other field marks on the bird clearly made up for this variation. The rest of the underparts, from the breast to the belly, were bright white, with only a few stray black flecks below the bend in the wing and on the flanks. The scapulars and upper coverts on the wing stood out particularly well, having bold black centers fringed by warm ruddy colors and buffy edges. The lower coverts and tertials, in contrast, showed very little color, mostly plain gray, giving the bird a bit of a half-and-half look on its back and wings, which seems to be an important character for separating Red-necked and Little Stints. There were slight creamy mantle lines showing on the back. The wingtips extended to the tip of the tail or possibly slightly past the tip of the tail, but not much further. We didn’t see the tail very well, but it looked plain dark gray." Photos by Sally Marrone.

Technical information

Model

CYBERSHOT

ISO

120

Focal length

21 mm

Flash

Flash did not fire

f-stop

f/2.5

Shutter speed

1/125 sec

Dimensions

946 pixels x 594 pixels

Original file size

144.17 KB