Your Birding Month

Birds to find this month include Quail, Turtle Dove and Nightjar

The tiny, creeping Temminck’s Stint is one of the most sought-after of the regular passage waders. This is primarily because it is always a pretty scarce bird, with only about 100 individuals seen during passage times in the UK. But it is also because these tiddlers among the wader world present something of a challenge, being not only very small, but also pretty unobtrusive in their habits and movements. And tiny this wader definitely is. Those measurements of ‘length’ you see in bird books are the distance from bill tip to tail tip of a bird lying flat on its back. Measured this way, a House Sparrow is 14-16cm long. A Temminck’s Stint is 13.5-15cm. So, imagine a wader no bigger than a sparrow creeping in a ‘crouched’ gait around the vegetated edge of a mud-fringed pit. Creep they do, too, quite unlike the dashing, energetic movements of the similar-sized Little Stint. They are also duller in plumage, being largely grey-brown with a bit of a breast band, which combined with the crouched stance and attenuated rear end, with tail projecting beyond the wings) gives them a Common Sandpiper-like look (though a minuscule one). Apart from the tiny size, creeping style and dull plumage, there are few outstanding identifying features on this ‘birder’s bird’. But, look for the pale yellow-green legs (unlike the black legs of Little Stints etc) and the odd dark feather centre on the back/wing in spring birds. If you see one in flight, they have white tails with a black line down the middle, but this can be hard to see in most circumstances.