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 ______________________________________________________________________ Ohio-birds mailing list, a service of the Ohio Ornithological Society. Our thanks to Miami University for hosting this mailing list. Additional discussions can be found in our forums, at www.ohiobirds.org/forum/. You can join or leave the list, or change your options, at: http://listserv.muohio.edu/scripts/wa.exe?LIST=OHIO-BIRDS Send questions or comments about the list to: [log in to unmask]