Exciting news from Bob Lane, late this afternoon, that the stint (Little or
Red-necked) at Conneaut may still be present, although I'm sure it's
frustrating for those who looked for the bird this morning and found it
missing.

Anyone going to look for the bird tomorrow would find it worthwhile to read
the discussion on RareBirds first  --
http://www.rarebird.org/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=4267   --   in order to
understand the issues involved.  Craig Holt, a very skilled observer who
knows the North American shorebirds extremely well, found the bird on
Wednesday and quickly identified it as one of the Old World species (which
the British call "stints," basically the small members of the genus
Calidris, close relatives of what we would call "peeps" here).  He put the
word out that it was a possible Little Stint, in order to convey the
importance of the record, and then got a photographer to obtain many
pictures of the bird.  John Pogacnik and Gabe Leidy also got to Conneaut on
Wednesday, studied the bird closely, and got more photos.  So the bird has
been well documented.  It just hasn't been identified with certainty yet.

The issue here is that juveniles of Little and Red-necked Stints can be very
similar, and both are variable enough that they can overlap in general
appearance.  The bird at Conneaut appears (in photos at least) to be
somewhere between the "typical" appearance of the two species.  If you look
at RareBird and follow the link that Marshall Iliff provides, to some photos
by Chris Wood, you'll see a more typical juvenile Red-necked.  Its coverts,
tertials, and lower scapulars are very gray, providing a strong contrast to
the bright rufous on the upper scapulars, and its crown pattern is very
muted.  The Conneaut bird may be a Red-necked, but if so it's not such an
obvious one; its coverts and lower scapulars are not such a dull gray, and
its crown pattern and back stripes look a little stronger than on the bird
in Chris Wood's photos.  On the other hand, the Conneaut bird doesn't seem
to have the rufous on the edges of the tertials that has been obvious on the
juvenile Little Stints I've seen in Europe, and its crown pattern and chest
pattern are not the classic strong pattern of Little.

Although I've seen a fair number of stints and have studied their
identification, I don't claim to know what the Conneaut bird is.  I'd like
to see more photos (and/or the bird itself!).  It's definitely either
Red-necked or Little, and Craig Holt deserves a lot of credit for noting
that it wasn't just a bright Semipalmated.  Birders going to look for it
should review those "parts of the bird" diagrams in your field guides, to
make sure you know where the tertials, lower scapulars, and coverts are, so
that you can see for yourself how those feather groups are colored.  It's
not necessary to slap a name on the bird right away -- we know it's
something rare, and we know it's a great opportunity for study and
discussion.

Kenn Kaufman
Oak Harbor, Ohio

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