This juvenile Semipalmated Sandpiper (SESA) was photographed near
Fort Worth, Texas on August 16, 1994 by Martin Reid. Note the
molted two upper scaps and one lower scap (two adjacent mantle
feathers were also molted). On Aug 8, 1999 at this same site I
saw THREE different juv. SESAs that had at least one molted winter
feather in the upperparts:- two had similar molts to this bird,
while the third had replaced one innermost greater covert on one
side (perhaps in this case due to premature loss?). Update
July 25, 2000 - scroll to bottom of page:
note also that the pattern of the innermost greater-covert is
very RNST-like on this bird:
the rear supercilium is weaker than on most SESAs, the lateral
crown is slightly paler; the auriculars are a bit paler than is
normal on SESA (approaching RNST in this regard):
Compare in detail this bird to a Red-necked Stint from Japan
- I downloaded that image and enlarged it - there is a remarkable
similarity to the FW bird, including:- the paler lateral crown
with supercilium having a pale gray interruption ahead of the
eye), bill size and shape, pattern of ear coverts, pattern of
mantle, scaps and coverts (except of course the molted feathers),
position of tertial tips, breast pattern - in fact it could pass
for an earlier photo of the FW bird. The exposed tibia looks different,
but I'll bet that inland Texas in mid-August is much hotter than
Japan at that approximate time, and the RNST has much more (fluffed-up)
belly showing below the folded wing. I re-checked my notes and
I was unable to see any details on the feet on the FW bird, due
to the soft mud:
Left photo taken on the night of Sept 20/21, 1990 by Shimpei Watanabe,
and is courtesy of Shimpset Photo Gallery "Birds of Japan"
http://www.big.or.jp/~shimpset/ - click
here then scroll down to "v.14 contents" and select
"Tonen(midnight)"
