After a fantastic morning at Hide-A-Way Hills, I decided to do south-central Ohio shore birding.  This will be the first of two reports.  By the way, Saturday morning was fantastic with close looks at the adults alone, feeding young and the abandoned nest.  All of these were the best for Mississippi Kite in my birding career.

I stopped by Pickerington Ponds to check out the shorebird habitat and shorebirds on Blue Wing Pond from the parking area at Wood Duck Picnic area.

There were more birds present than I expected based on reports from those in attendance at Hide-A-Way Hill.  Here is the list of shorebirds seen.

Semipalmated Plover 4, Killdeer 30, Greater yellowlegs 1, Lesser Yellowlegs 10, Spotted Sandpiper 1, Semipalmated/Western type 1 (see further notes), Least Sandpiper 8, Pectoral Sandpiper 20, Short-billed Dowitcher 1.

I was there from about 1-1:30 until just before 3:00 pm.  Several rain showers drove me back into my van.  The birds were occasionally flushed and moved around quite a bit.

I found a relatively long-billed Semipalmated/Western type peep/stint.  The bird stayed well out on the mudflats closer to the tree line that separates Blue Wing Pond into two parts.  I was not able to get a really close look to verify that it was indeed a Western, and was not able to verify it by call.  When I first found the bird, I noticed a relatively long bill in comparison to the very evident least sandpipers, but with a gray plumage like a Semipalmated or Western Sandpiper.  Several times I thought that I saw rufous/cinnamon in the scapular area, but I could not get a close enough look to verify that what I was seeing was the rusty/cinnamon upper scapulars of a Western and not the similar appearance of a fresh juvenile female Semipalmated Sandpiper with a long bill.  (There is a fresh juvenile Semi with rufous in the scapular area shown in Shorebirds, An Identification Guide, by Hayman, Marchant and Prater, which I had with me.)  This was complicated by not having other clearly identifiable Semipalmated Sandpipers present to identify this Semipalmated/Western type by structure and the specific feather patterns.  I was not close enough to see the differences in scapular feather patterns that are pointed out in Shorebirds, An Identification Guide, Peter Hayman, John Marchant and Tony  Prater.  When the birds flushed and gave flight calls, I heard only flight calls of Least and Semipalmated Sandpipers.  Last night and this morning, I consulted the above reference, as well as Shorebirds of the Pacific Northwest and Shorebirds of North America, both by Dennis Paulson, and the article, Field Identification of smaller sandpipers with the genus Calidris, by Veit and Johnson, from American Birds, Summer 1987, as well as the newer article, Identification of North American Peeps from Birding, July/August 2008.  This convinced me that this peep may indeed be a Western as previously reported, assuming the previous bird reported and the one I was looking at are the same bird.  The bird I saw did seem rather long-legged (a characteristic of Western relative to Semipalmated), but that can be hard to judge from a distance with only one bird.  Of note, Least Sandpipers are known to crouch down and stay low there, so the comparison with Least may not be relevant.   There is also a good chance that it is long-billed female Semipalmated, given that there was previous report from Saturday of two Semipalmated Sandpipers present at Teal Pond.

Hopefully this note will prompt more Columbus birders to check out the peeps at Pickerington Ponds, if they are not already doing so.
Jay

Jay G. Lehman
Cincinnati, OH
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