Figure 228. A first-fall Long-toed Stint studied by hundreds and photographed extensively at Salinas, Monterey County, 28 August–2 September 1988, remains the only one recorded in California. This photo was taken on 29 August (1988-161; Peter LaTourrette).

 

 

 

 

 

LONG-TOED STINT Calidris subminuta (Middendorff, 1853)

Accepted: 1 (17%)	Treated in Appendix H: no
Not accepted: 5	CBRC review: all records
Not submitted/reviewed: 0	Large color image: see Figure

This stint breeds in small, disjunct populations from southwestern Siberia to islands off Kamchatka. The species winters from eastern India, southeastern China, and Taiwan south to Australia. Migrants are encountered rarely but regularly on the western Aleutian Islands, primarily in spring, and casually on islands in the Bering Sea. Vagrants have twice been recorded at the south jetty of the Columbia River in Oregon: a first-fall bird present 2–6 September 1981 and an adult in alternate plumage on 17 July 1983. Additional records of vagrants come from the northwestern Hawaiian Islands, Europe, and South Africa.

California’s only Long-toed Stint was a first-fall bird present 29 August–2 September 1988 at the Salinas sewage treatment plant in Monterey County (Patten and Daniels 1991; Figure 228). The Committee’s unwillingness to endorse any of the other five reports underscores the difficulty in distinguishing this species from the highly variable Least Sandpiper. The classic identification paper remains Jonsson and Grant (1984); Veit and Jonsson (1987) used the same color plates with different text. Other useful references include Hayman et al. (1986), Wilds (1988), Alström and Olsson (1989), Paulson (2005), and O’Brien et al. (2006).