Figure 226. Little Stints have been recorded in California in various seasons and plumages. Among the most striking individuals was this alternate-plumaged bird, photographed on 28 July 1992 at San Joaquin Marsh in Orange County (1992-205; Herbert Clarke).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

LITTLE STINT Calidris minuta (Leisler, 1812)

Accepted: 7 (39%)	Treated in Appendix H: yes
Not accepted: 11	CBRC review: all records
Not submitted/reviewed: 0	Large color image: see Figure

This stint breeds along the northern coast of Eurasia from Scandinavia east to north-central Siberia. The main wintering areas are in southern Europe, Africa, and the Middle East, and on the Indian subcontinent, with small numbers reaching Southeast Asia. Migrants are encountered very rarely or casually on the western Aleutian Islands and islands of the Bering Sea, and in northern Alaska. Documented strays have reached Hawaii, both coasts of North America, Yukon, North Dakota (NAB 57:508, 574), New Mexico (NAB 59:473), Ontario, and Bermuda; a first-fall bird present from 22 to 30 October 2002 in northwestern Baja California furnished the first record for Middle America (Iliff et al. 2004).

California’s first Little Stint was a crisply marked, first-fall bird photographed between 14 and 22 September 1983 in Bolinas, Marin County. The bird was initially called a Red-necked Stint, but examination of the photos proved otherwise. Two additional first-fall birds have been recorded at coastal estuaries between 10 September and 14 October, but the remaining records include a mishmash of ages and seasons. Birds in alternate plumage have been documented once in spring (mid May) and twice in fall (late July and late August). Most surprising of all was a bird in formative plumage collected on 21 November 1988 at Harper Dry Lake, San Bernardino County; it may have been attempting to overwinter in the Mojave Desert.

Little Stints can be exceedingly difficult to distinguish from Red-necked Stints, Western Sandpipers, or Semipalmated Sandpipers, depending on age and plumage. This high potential for confusion explains why the CBRC has endorsed fewer than half of the records submitted for review. In addition to the identification references listed for the Red-necked Stint, see also Szantyr (1997) as well as field guides by Mullarney et al. (1999), Sibley (2000), Paulson (2005), and O’Brien et al. (2006).

 

[TEMMINCK’S STINT Calidris temminckii (Leisler, 1812) – see hypothetical section]