Quizpiper

Live shorebirds are usually easier than photos: not only can you walk around them for a different angle, but they do things like move and call, offering clues a static image never reveals.

All the same, this Least Sandpiper, distant and blurry though it may be, didn’t fool anybody. Sewage pond habitués (probably the only people to look at this quiz anyway!) will likely have a good sense of the diameter of the boom the bird is perched on, making it immediately obvious that this is a small sandpiper. The junco-like pattern to the underparts and the yellow tarsus identify it pretty quickly as a Least. As some noted, the breast pattern might recall Pectoral, but even small females of that species are taller and more elegant than leasties, and I believe that Pectorals show clear streaks in the dark bib even in basic plumage.

Of course, I’ve never seen a Long-toed Stint (to know it: now there’s a thought to torture oneself with!). But if the books don’t lie, the photo does show one structural character that identifies this as a Least: the middle toe of the bird’s left foot is approximately the same length as the tarsus, which seems to be approximately the same length as the (foreshortened) bill.

Plus, we’re in southeast Arizona, which has to count for something!