Red-necked Stints

This post is for Wild Bird Wednesday which Stewart has started after the World Bird Wednesday was discontinued. 

I am only posting one photo this week.  Of all the 50 or so photos I took out at Inskip Point last week this one was the most interesting to a shorebird watcher in the southern hemisphere.  It is winter down here right now and the only shorebirds around are juveniles and the occasional adult that has decided for some reason not to migrate this season.  The rest of the shorebirds are making use of the summer weather in the northern hemisphere for their breeding season.  The birds in the photo are Red-necked Stints (Calidris ruficollis) which are the smallest of all the shorebirds that migrate to Australia for our summer.  Although there is a small size difference between similar birds that difference is greatly magnified in the photo because of the way each bird is standing.  The bird on the right is in complete non-breeding plumage and the bird on the left is in almost total breeding plumage.  The one in the center has a very small amount of breeding color in some of the feathers down its back.  I can't remember ever seeing a Red-necked Stint showing this amount of breeding plumage at this time of year.  (Click on the photo to see a larger size with more detail visible.)