A juvenile Little Stint (Calidris minuta) occurred at Estero Punta Banda, Baja California, Mexico, from 22 to 30 October 2002. The Little Stint breeds in the northern Palearctic and winters primarily in Africa and India. Since 1975 it has been found with increasing regularity as a vagrant in the New World, primarily in Alaska. The observation we report is the first record for Mexico and the first photographically documented record for Middle America.
The Little Stint (Calidris minuta) is one of seven small similarly plumaged arctic-breeding shorebirds known collectively in the United States and Canada as peeps and in Britain as stints. Members of this group pose considerable field identification challenges, the most difficult of which arise among the four small, black-legged species: the Semipalmated (C. pusilla) and Western (C. mauri) Sandpipers and the Little and Red-necked (C. ruficollis) Stints, all of which are similar in size, structure, and plumage.