Hello All,

Matt Sadowski discovered San Diego County, California's first record of Red-necked Stint yesterday.  For international birders reading this, the species is rare but nearly annual vagrant to both coasts, I believe most typically in July and August.  See details below.

Jay Keller,
San Diego, CA USA


-----Forwarded Message-----
>From: Matt Sadowski
>Sent: Jul 23, 2008 5:25 PM
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: [SDBIRDS] Red-necked Stint photos, 23 July 2008, San Diego Bay
>
>I got to work early this morning and had to wait for a coworker so I grabbed my coffee and took a stroll along the mudflats.
>Shorebird numbers were low so I wasn't expecting much until I saw a rather reddish-throated Calidris foraging in the distance on the
>upper/drier part of the mudflat. My first thought was stint but the rational part of my brain was saying "calm down, it's just a
>Sanderling". As the the bird crossed paths with a Western Sandpiper (showing relative size) that thought process was put to a halt.
>Eventually I could see it was rather fatter looking than a WESA with shorter legs, the posture being more like Least Sandpiper
>(although obviously larger). The face was pale with a pale red wash on the throat and spots below that on the sides of the breast. I
>started taking many docu-shots from a distance. Since my phone had just informed me that it had run out of minutes it was at this
>point that I realized I would need to leave the bird and find a pay phone.
>
>Luckily the bird stayed on the mudflats until about 11:00 and I was able to get some closer shots before it flew to the sandspit
>southeast of the mudflat, where we left it.
>
>Photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/68911779@N00/
>
>Driving past later, during the peak of the high tide, I did not see any birds roosting on the sandspit so the small shorebirds
>either roosted somewhere in the drier Least Tern nesting area (restricted) to the south or somewhere else altogether. Hopefully the
>bird is back out there right now (17:22, tide dropping). There is no point in looking for it during high tide because even if it was
>roosting somewhere in the area it would not be readily visible from the bike path viewpoint.
>
>Google map: http://tinyurl.com/5wf6pn
>
>Matt Sadowski
>Chula Vista
>