I posted this the day it happened in Facebook, but didn't get a chance to post the complete story. I participated in the Cape May Spring Birding Festival the weekend of May 20th. Got to do some nature walks and was able to photograph dozens and dozens of bird species, 18 of which were new to me, aka, "lifers". I am still getting lots of lifers as I have only been intentionally birding since COVID, although unintentionally, I had taken pictures of lots and lots of birds in my years of traveling for work. That got me a huge jump start on different bird species around the country. I am up to 25 species in the backyard and 192 in total. However, the morning of May 20th, I was in the company of about 20 birders, including several with decades of experience leading us on a walk. One of our group, pointed out this little guy in the center of the shot above and we started to try to figure out what it was, as the local birders could not immediately identify the species.
As you can see, in the cropped photo, the mystery bird is a lot oranger in color but otherwise very similar to the semipalmated sandpipers it was standing next to. Although once you see it, the bird stands out, but in a field of hundreds of similar birds, I would not have even noticed it on my own. The first guess was a Western Sandpiper, which is a rare visitor to New Jersey, especially in the spring. The guess was a close call, but the bill is too short and straight for a Western so the professionals in our group kept trying different closely related species. Finally, one of our group, I wish I knew his name, called out a Little Stint. That fit the description but the Little Stint is a very rare bird on the east coast, as it is usually found in Asia. Further investigation led us to believe that in fact, it was the Little Stint, but a find like this has to be confirmed by the American Birding Association so a text with pictures went out and within 10 minutes, the find was confirmed. The next day a rare bird alert went out and several birders did see this rare visitor the next day. I believe this is only the 5th or 6th time a Little Stint has been seen in New Jersey and not since 2017. This little guy was way off course, but maybe just wanted to visit some cousins in New Jersey.
The other bird in the picture with the dark band on its head and neck is a semipalmated plover. That was also a lifer for me, although very common on coast. Anyway, not only did I get a couple more lifers, which isn't hard for me to do at this point, but also participated in the process to see other birders who have been doing this for decades also get a new bird, which I am sure is very rare for them. Pretty cool.
