White-Rumped Sandpiper ID, NJ (1 Viewer)

Photos were taken at Forsythe NWR a couple days ago. First 2 photos the bird is on the left, and 3rd shows flight. I'm not sure if the feeding bird and the bird in flight are the same but are both showing white-rumped sandpipers?

Is bird in the middle of photo 4 a least sandpiper?

Thanks

The left hand bird in images 1 & 2 is indeed White-rumped Sandpiper. The obviously white-rumped but very blurred bird in the centre of image (is that the bird that you mean?) 3 looks like a Lesser Yellowlegs. The centre bird in image 4 isn't a Least and looks more like Western.

RB

Rotherbirder said:

The left hand bird in images 1 & 2 is indeed White-rumped Sandpiper. The obviously white-rumped but very blurred bird in the centre of image (is that the bird that you mean?) 3 looks like a Lesser Yellowlegs. The centre bird in image 4 isn't a Least and looks more like Western.

RB

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Agree with all of this except the birds in 4 are all semipalmated sandpipers. The bird in the center has a slightly thin pointed bill that approaches western in a appearance, but a western at this time of year would be much brighter orange. Western sandpiper is about as rare as a curlew sandpiper at Forsythe in May

tom baxter said:

Agree with all of this except the birds in 4 are all semipalmated sandpipers. The bird in the center has a slightly thin pointed bill that approaches western in a appearance, but a western at this time of year would be much brighter orange. Western sandpiper is about as rare as a curlew sandpiper at Forsythe in May

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Fair enough Tom; I didn't check the geography & bow to your 'local' knowledge. :t:

RB

Thanks very much. White-rumped was a nemesis for me - lifer! I assumed white-rumped for the bird in flight even though the wings looked wrong - for some reason yellowlegs didn’t come to mind even though they are abundant at the location but that must be what it is. I asked about the last pic thinking western was a possibility as there were a couple reported recently.

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NJBirder12 said:

Thanks very much. White-rumped was a nemesis for me - lifer! I assumed white-rumped for the bird in flight even though the wings looked wrong - for some reason yellowlegs didn’t come to mind even though they are abundant at the location but that must be what it is. I asked about the last pic thinking western was a possibility as there were a couple reported recently.

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There have been reports, all pictures I have seen so far were misidentified Semipalmated Sandpipers, understandably so. The variation in bright plumages and bill shapes and lengths in Semis is huge when they come through in the spring, as they come through in the tens of thousands at places such as Forsythe and the Delaware Bay. It is certainly possible, but a very rare bird in the spring. I actually once found a Western at Stone Harbor Point in August, when Western Sandpipers are quite common at the location, and it was banded on Delaware Bay in the spring, and logged as a Semipalmated. It goes both ways! not the easiest ID to make, but in the spring, Westerns would almost always be VERY orange, even if they were a 1 year old bird.

Check out the MaCauly library images of Western Sandpiper, filtered to the month of May.

https://ebird.org/media/catalog?bmo=5&taxonCode=wessan&mr=MCUSTOM&mediaType=p&emo=5&q=Western%20Sandpiper

Thanks so much for the info. I will check that out