Himantopus himantopus
Silhouette: Edwin Price · PhyloPic
In 3 days ~30% in a week ~60%
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 Thiruvananthapuram on a given day, based on 263 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data. It is the 57th most-seen of the 174 birds we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to about 30%, and over a week to about 60%, if each day is a fresh chance.
December
In that month about 30% of wildlife watchers report a Black-winged Stilt in Thiruvananthapuram on a given day, against under 5% in May, July and September–November, the lowest months. That is one of Thiruvananthapuram's driest months, with about 60 mm of rain against 290 mm in October.
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.
53rd of 126
Of the 126 cities where we can rate Black-winged Stilt sightings, Thiruvananthapuram ranks 53rd 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 Thiruvananthapuram (order Charadriiformes, Shorebirds and Allies) are Bronze-winged Jacana (about 30%), Red-wattled Lapwing (about 30%) and Wood Sandpiper (about 20%), 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 Thiruvananthapuram (263 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.
