Himantopus himantopus
Silhouette: Edwin Price · PhyloPic
In 3 days ~40% in a week ~70%
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 Minneriya National Park on a given day, based on 93 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data from 2019 to 2026. It is the 86th most-seen of the 155 birds we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to about 40%, and over a week to about 70%, if each day is a fresh chance.
September
In that month about 50% of wildlife watchers report a Black-winged Stilt in Minneriya National Park on a given day, against under 5% in March–May and November–January, the lowest months. That is one of Minneriya National Park's driest months, with about 70 mm of rain against 340 mm in November.
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.
36th of 72
Of the 72 parks where we can rate Black-winged Stilt sightings, Minneriya National Park ranks 36th at about 10%. The best odds are in Doñana National Park (Spain, about 70%), Keoladeo National Park (India, about 60%) and Gonarezhou National Park (Zimbabwe, about 60%). All parks ranked.
Same order: Charadriiformes
The closest relatives of the Black-winged Stilt that you can see in Minneriya National Park (order Charadriiformes, Shorebirds and Allies) are Red-wattled Lapwing (about 50%), Pheasant-tailed Jacana (about 10%) and Whiskered Tern (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 Minneriya National Park (93 verified sightings from 2019 to 2026), 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.
