Stilt Sandpipers in the Causeway Retention Ponds

I just found myself running errands in the vicinity of the storm water retention ponds at Causeway x Earhart in Metairie, and decided to zip in for a quick look.

There was lots of mud- the habitat looked great for waders large and small.

There was one species of migratory shorebird present:   Stilt Sandpiper, of which there were three.  All in adult plumage.  This was a notable sighting for the city- a birder could easily pass a season without seeing one inside the hurricane levee.  What was doubly odd, was that there were no other migratory shorebirds present- just the resident Black-necked Stilts.  Normally, there is sort of a hierarchy one works through at small inland shorebird habitats like this one.  The lowest hanging fruit are Killdeer, Lesser Yellowlegs, and Spotted, Solitary and Least Sandpipers.  Only after a site has attracted the presence of a few (or all) of these does one usually hope to start picking up some of the more selective species that require higher caliber habitat:  a Black-bellied or Semipalmated Plover, Western or Pectoral Sandpiper, Greater Yellowlegs, etc..  It is usually only after one or a few of this second tier starts using a site, that one hopes to find something like a Stilt Sandpiper (or a dowitcher, White-rumped Sandpiper, etc.). 

The point is, it is odd to have three Stilt Sandpipers here when the site has not yet attracted any of the "easier" species.

Also present was a White-faced or Glossy Ibis (I couldn't see the diagnostic eye and face pattern), 20 White Ibis, 11 Snowy Egrets, and singles each of Little Blue, Tricolored, and Great and Cattle Egrets.  A pair of Black-bellied Whistling-Ducks was on the shore, and a lone adult Laughing Gull was standing in the shallows. 

Peter