Chris,
How are things? Haven't heard from you since Ashmore last year.
I have knowledge of a few WA sightings. I don't know if they were
submitted to BARC.
The Little Stint that I have seen in WA was at Lake Cooloongup in the
southern suburbs of Perth in late January or early February a few years
ago. It was in full breeding plumage. It stayed for about a week. It did
have the white V on the back.
I am aware that the Australian Wader Study Group has banded at least one
(but I think I heard about a second) Little Stint in the vicinity of
Broome. I believe that it was in non breeding plumage and that it was
identified by measurements. If you have any experience of banding, then
when you are banding 20 to 50 to 100 stints as a group, you have the
calipers etc all set up, and when something different comes along you
notice it reasonably easy as being out of normal range.
There was a Little Stint identified at Lake McLarty near Pinjarra about 2
hours SSE of Perth early last year by two very experienced WA birders with
British backgrounds. I believe that this was in partial breeding plumage
but I did not see the bird and I don't know what features were used in the
ID. Lake McLarty can have several thousand Red-necked Stints in late
summer although numbers were low last year.
I have heard tales of the Little Stint banded at Werribee near Melbourne
many years ago. This was identified previously to being caught, but
happened to be included in the monthly cannon net catch shortly after which
clinched the identification.
The above doesn't really answer very much about your specific question of
identification in the field.
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