what did we see?

Did we really see a Red-necked Stint at Pike's Beach?

The second week of June is not the best time to check out the shorebirds but if they're anywhere they'll be at Pike's Beach. There have been Horseshoe Crab landings at that favored spot as recently as last night and this morning's tide was low and starting to turn. We saw Least and Common Terns, Piping Plovers and Willets -- but they all breed so there were no surprises there. Among the migrants we saw Dunlin (one), Ruddy Turnstones (a few), Black-bellied Plover (a couple), Semipalmated Plover (a few), Sanderlings (quite a few) and Semipalmated Sandpipers (dozens, maybe hundreds). With an array of birds like this, there is nothing to do but look at peeps and try to find one that is different from the others. And, lo and behold, we found one in the middle of a flock near the far end of the peninsula, that was covered, front and center, in a reddish wash. A Sanderling in breeding plumage? It looked the size of a Semipalmated Sandpiper except that it had shorter legs. The reddish wash seemed to cover the neck and upper breast and also extended onto the back. A stint? Red-necked Stint? Little Stint? The distance between us and the flock was considerable so we decided to try to creep up on it (not so easy on an open sandy shore), stopping every now and then to use our spotting scopes to get a better look. Eventually the flock scattered, reformed and landed again in another spot. Our target bird disappeared behind a sand ridge. Then we thought we re-found it but now the rediscovered bird with the reddish wash turned out to be one of those breeding plumage Sanderlings with a lot of color; there were two or three of them scattered among less colorful Sanderlings. The tide was starting to come in and the peeps were redeploying -- with or without Sanderlings.

A stint on Pike's Beach? On July 15, 2000, I found a Red-necked Stint AND a Little Stint together on the bay shore here not too far from where we saw the mystery bird today. At one point, I even had both stints in my binoculars at the same time! The presence of these two vagrants was confirmed by photographs. No wonder that a visit to Pike's Beach, even after 11 years, produces that stints-on-the-brain effect.

So what did we see this morning? Eileen took photographs including some through her scope and some through mine Alas, nothing was clear enough. Red-necked Stint is the best guess but we'll never know for sure.

This afternoon, as I was writing this post on my porch, a pair of orange butterflies was zooming around -- fighting? courting? protecting territory? -- and perching on stems just outside. They were skippers -- but which ones? Indian Skipper? Hobomok Skipper? Zabulon Skipper? Skippers are the stints, the peeps of the butterfly world.

Eric Salzman