Description:

Black and white, slender appearance, long pinkish legs, and fine straight bill. Adult at rest shows mainly white head, neck and underbody, contrasting with upperparts, and reddish-pink legs. Both sexes can show variable amounts of black and/or dusky grey on the crown and hind neck. Juvenile has browner upperparts with buff fringes.

Distribution:

Common passage migrant all across Gilgit-Baltistan, rare in Shigar, Ghanche and Kharmang. Favors shallow wetlands, including saline or freshwater lakes, slow flowing rivers, pools and streams with sparse vegetation, occurs up to over 4500m.

Behavior:

Captures prey by visual and tactile methods including scything in soft mud when prey not visible. Typically prefers shallow water, more rarely forages on dry land or in water up to belly deep, even swims occasionally. Carnivorous, preying on great variety of small, mainly aquatic, invertebrates and vertebrates, occasionally seeds. Diet often strongly seasonal, depending on habitat.

Photo Gallery:

Range & Occurrence:

Resident Species

Summer Breeder

Winter Visitor

Passage Migrant

Distribution Map of Black-winged Stilt in Gilgit-Baltistan (Status: )

Seasonal Occurrence of Black-winged Stilt

Resources:

Birds of Pakistan: Helm Field Guides (R. Grimmett & T. Inskipp)
The Birds of Pakistan (T. J. Roberts)
Birds of the Indian Subcontinent (C. Inskipp, R. Grimmett & T. Inskipp)
Birds of South Asia: The Ripley Guide (P. Rasmussen & J. Anderton)
Birds of India: Collins Field Guide (N. Arlott)
Handbook of the Birds of India and Pakistan (S. Ali & S. D. Ripley)
Handbook of the Birds of the World (https://www.hbw.com)
The Clements Checklist of Birds of the World, 6th Edition
iNaturalist BoGB (inaturalist.org/projects/birds-of-gilgit-baltistan)
Birds of Gilgit-Baltistan (http://fb.me/birdsgb)

*Gallery images on this page are shared from flickr.com, and are copyrighted to their respective creators or owners.