Temminck's Stint

Taxobox
name = Temminck's Stint
status = LC | status_system = IUCN3.1
status_ref = [IUCN2006|assessors=BirdLife International|year=2004|id=49079|title=Calidris temminckii|downloaded=11 May 2006 Database entry includes justification for why this species is of least concern]


image_width = 204px
regnum = Animalia
phylum = Chordata
classis = Aves
ordo = Charadriiformes
familia = Scolopacidae
genus = "Calidris"
species = "C. temminckii"
binomial = "Calidris temminckii"
binomial_authority = Leisler, 1812
subdivision_ranks = Synonyms
subdivision ="Erolia temminckii"

Temminck's Stint, "Calidris" or "Erolia temminckii", is a small wader.

This stint's breeding habitat is bogs and marshes in the taiga of Arctic northern Europe and Asia. It will breed in southern Scandinavia and occasionally Scotland. It has a distinctive hovering display flight. It nests in a scrape on the ground, laying 3-4 eggs. Temminck's Stint is strongly migratory, wintering at freshwater sites in tropical Africa and south Asia. On very rare occasions it has been spotted in North America in Alaska, British Columbia and Washington State.

These birds forage in soft mud with some vegetation, mainly picking up food by sight. They have a distinctive mouse-like feeding behaviour, creeping steadily along the edges of pools. They mostly eat insects and other small invertebrates. They not as gregarious as other "Calidris" waders, and rarely form large flocks.

These birds are very small waders, at 13.5-15cm length similar in size to Little Stint, " Calidris"/"Erolia minuta". They are shorter legged and longer winged than Little Stint. The legs are yellow, and the outer tail feathers white, in contrast to Little Stint's dark legs and grey outer tail feathers.

This is a rather drab wader, with mainly plain brown upperparts and head, and underparts white apart from a darker breast. The breeding adult has some brighter rufous mantle feathers to relieve the generally still undistinguished appearance. In winter plumage, the general appearance recalls a tiny version of Common Sandpiper. The call is a loud trill.

Temminck's Stints have an intriguing breeding and parental care system in which males and female parents incubate separate clutches, typically in different locations. Males establish small territories and mate with a female who lays a first clutch of eggs. She then moves to a second territory and mate, and lays a second clutch that she incubates herself. Concurrently, her first male may mate with an incoming second female, who lays her second clutch on his territory. The male thereafter incubates his first mate's first clutch alone.

This bird was named after Coenraad Jacob Temminck, a Dutch naturalist.

Temminck's Stint is one of the species to which the "Agreement on the Conservation of African-Eurasian Migratory Waterbirds" (AEWA) applies.

An apparent hybrid between this species and the Little Stint has been reported from The Netherlands. [Jonsson, Lars (1996): Mystery stint at Groote Keeten: First known hybrid between Little and Temminck's Stint? "Dutch Birding" 18: 24-28.]

Gallery

References

Further reading

Identification

* Jonsson, Lars & Peter J. Grant (1984) Identification of stints and peeps "British Birds" 77(7):293-315