Red-necked Stints.
Photo: K Vang and W Dabrowka © Bird Explorers
Red-necked Stints.
Photo: K Vang and W Dabrowka © Bird Explorers
Distribution map of Calidris ruficollis
Map © Birds Australia Birdata
Red-necked Stint
Scientific name: Calidris ruficollis
Family: Scolopacidae
Order: Charadriiformes
- Featured Bird Groups
- Shore birds and waders
What does it look like?
Description
The Red-necked Stint is a very common and very small sandpiper. The legs are short and the bill is straight or slightly decurved, with a bulbous tip. In non-breeding plumage, the upper parts are brown and grey-brown, with most feathers pale-edged, giving a mottled effect. There is a pale eye-stripe. The rump and tail are black and the outer tail-feathers and sides of rump white. There is a pale wing-stripe in flight. The underparts are white with some grey on the sides of the breast. Eyes are dark brown; bill and legs black. In breeding plumage, the colouring changes, with deep salmon-pink on head and nape suffusing into pink on the mantle and wing-coverts. Immature birds are similar to non-breeding adults but browner and the crown is dull rufous. This species is also known as Rufous-necked Stint, Redneck or Little Sandpiper, Land Snipe, Little Stint, Eastern Little Stint, Least Sandpiper.
Similar species
The Red-necked Stint is very similar in size, shape and plumage to the Little Stint, C. minuta, which has longer legs, is dumpier and has a blunter rear end at rest. The calls also differ. It is smaller than the Broad-billed Sandpiper, Limicola falcinellus, which has a longer, differently shaped bill.
Where does it live?
Distribution
The Red-necked Stint breeds in north-eastern Siberia and northern and western Alaska. It follows the the East Asian-Australasian Flyway to spend the southern summer months in Australia. It is found widely in Australia, except in the arid inland.
Habitat
In Australia, Red-necked Stints are found on the coast, in sheltered inlets, bays, lagoons, estuaries, intertidal mudflats and protected sandy or coralline shores. They may also be seen in saltworks, sewage farms, saltmarsh, shallow wetlands including lakes, swamps, riverbanks, waterholes, bore drains, dams, soaks and pools in saltflats, flooded paddocks or damp grasslands. They are often in dense flocks, feeding or roosting.
Seasonal movements
The Red-necked Stint is a migratory wader, breeding in Siberia and west Alaska and then moving to non-breeding areas in South-East Asia and Australasia south of about 25° S. They arrive in Australia from late August to September and leave from early March to mid-April. Some first-year birds may remain in Australia.
What does it do?
Feeding
Red-necked Stints are omnivorous, taking seeds, insects, small vertebrates, plants in saltmarshes, molluscs, gastopods and crustaceans. They forage on intertidal and near-coastal wetlands. They usually feed for the entire period that mudflats are exposed, often feeding with other species. They forage with a rather hunched posture, picking constantly and rapidly at the muddy surface, then dashing to another spot.Breeding
Red-necked Stints breed in the Arctic regions, on moist moss-lichen tundra. The nest is a shallow depression lined with leaves or grass. Both parents share incubation and care of the young. Unsuccessful breeders leave for the south in June, breeding females from mid-July, males a little later and juveniles by mid to late August.
Living with us
Living with humans
Threats on the East Asian-Australasian Flyway (the migration route to Australia) include economic and social pressures such as wetland destruction and change, pollution and hunting.References
Pringle, J.D. 1987. The Shorebirds of Australia. Angus and Robertson and the National Photographic Index of Australian Wildlife, Sydney.
Schodde, R. and Tideman, S.C. (eds) 1990. Reader's Digest Complete Book of Australian Birds (2nd Edition). Reader's Digest (Australia) Pty Ltd, Sydney.
Morcombe, M. 2000. Field guide to Australian Birds. Steve Parish Publishing.
Higgins, P.J. and S.J.J.F. Davies (eds) 1996. Handbook of Australian, New Zealand and Antarctic Birds, Volume 3 (Snipe to Pigeons). Oxford University Press, Victoria.