Himantopus himantopus
Silhouette: Edwin Price · PhyloPic
In 3 days ~20% in a week ~50%
The black-winged stilt (Himantopus himantopus) is a widely distributed, very long-legged wader in the avocet and stilt family Recurvirostridae. Its scientific name, Himantopus himantopus, is sometimes used to generalize a single, almost cosmopolitan species. Alternatively, it is restricted to the form that is widespread in Europe, Asia and Africa, which equals the nominate group of H. himantopus sensu lato. Meanwhile, the black-necked (H. mexicanus) and white-backed stilts (H. melanurus) both inhabit the Americas; the pied stilt (H. leucocephalus) ranges from Australia and New Zealand. Today, most sources accept between one and four actual species.
The black-winged stilt was formally described in 1758 by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in the tenth edition of his Systema Naturae. He placed it with the plovers in the genus Charadrius and coined the binomial name Charadrius himantopus. He specified the type locality as southern Europe. The taxonomic name Himantopus comes from Greek, meaning "strap-foot" or "thong-foot". The black-winged stilt is now one of five species placed in the genus Himantopus that was introduced by the French naturalist Mathurin Jacques Brisson... Wikipedia →
With luck
About 10% of wildlife watchers report a Black-winged Stilt sighting in Gwalior on a given day, based on 15 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data. It is the 52nd most-seen of the 86 birds we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to about 20%, and over a week to about 50%, if each day is a fresh chance.
February
In that month about 20% of wildlife watchers report a Black-winged Stilt in Gwalior on a given day, against under 5% in April–May and September, the lowest months. That is one of Gwalior's driest months, with about 15 mm of rain against 210 mm in August.
Between 7 and 10 am
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Black-winged Stilt sightings with a recorded time, and about 9 in 10 of them come between 6 am and 6 pm: it is a daytime animal.
66th of 126
Of the 126 cities where we can rate Black-winged Stilt sightings, Gwalior ranks 66th at about 10%. The best odds are in Quanzhou (China, about 70%), Agra (India, about 70%) and Kota (India, about 60%).
Same order: Charadriiformes
The closest relatives of the Black-winged Stilt that you can see in Gwalior (order Charadriiformes, Shorebirds and Allies) are Red-wattled Lapwing (about 60%), Common Sandpiper (about 10%) and Yellow-wattled Lapwing (about 10%), with each one's daily chance of a sighting.
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Black-winged Stilt is recorded against all the birds logged in Gwalior (15 verified sightings), calibrated against known sighting rates. Figures are rounded to the nearest 10% because citizen-science data supports honest approximations, not decimals, and months with records from fewer than five people show "—". How it works.
