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Little and Red-necked Stints

These two species are almost impossible to separate in non breeding plumage.
They used to be considered identical, Red-necked considered the Eastern version
of Little.

Now that the birds are getting some color I tried to pick out a few.

Some differences:

Red-necked has slightly thickened tip of bill, medium sized primary projection and rather 'stocky' neck and shoulders and somewhat shorter legs.

In breeding plumage the throat is red/rufous while Little is white.
Little also is more complete red then Red-necked in breeding plumage.

Little has longer primary projection thus making them look more slender but taller as the tibia is longer. The bill is more fine and slightly drooping.

I hope I have identified these correctly.






Comments

digdeep said…
I reckon you've got all these spot on Peter!
John Holmes said…
Difficult, I'll agree !

But if DB agrees with your IDs that's fine for me, too !

We get both here in Hong Kong, but Little is rare (and probably overlooked quite a lot).

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