English: Black-winged Stilt
Russian: Ходулочник
Mongolian: Эгэл хилэнжигүүр, Хилэн жигүүрт
German: Stelzenlaufer
French: Echasse blanche
Japanese: セイタカシギ (Seitaka-shigi)

Body length: 33-36cm (leg projection 14-17cm)

Frequents areas of shallow fresh, brackish or salt water, e.g. lagoons, saltpans, estuaries. Migratory, generally wintering in Africa. Vagrant to Britain & Ireland. Food mainly insects, long legs enable feeding in deeper water than used by other waders. Nest is lined scrape on islet or near water, occasionally a raised mound of vegetation in shallow water.

Identification: Extraordinarily elegant wader; unmistakable, with needle-fine, straight bill, amazingly long reddish-pink legs, and black and white plumage. In flight head and legs extended, giving bizarrely elongated outline; all-black underwing and flicking wing action with quite pointed wings add to distinctive appearance.

• Adult: ♂ readily told by whole upperparts green-glossed black; ♀ has glossy brown mantle and scapulars forming brown saddle that contrasts with black wings. ♂ averages more black on head than ♀, but much overlap and head and neck pattern not safe difference between sexes.
• Juvenile: Dull brown with scaly pattern of pale feather fringes, and pale-tipped secondaries and white-tipped inner primaries; legs dull flesh. 1st year: Told from adult so long as dull legs and juvenile flight-feathers retained; many indistinguishable by 1st summer.