G'day everyone,

I was hoping someone could help me with a question regarding the wing feathers of 2 Red-necked Stints I saw this afternoon.

In the first picture, you can see that the wing feathers above the red line that are closest to the head/shoulder area, are smaller and more in number than the feathers in the same are in the second picture.

So my question is can anyone shed some light on why the differences in plummage on the 2 birds? Is this bird moulting, or are the 2 birds at different life stages, or is it something entirely different?

The one thing I do know about these birds is that the greyer plummage on the bird in the second image is due to it coming into it's winter plummage.

Also there are feathers extending down the legs of the bird in the second image, but not in the first one. Not sure if that's relevant or not.

Photo of the second bird showing less feathers around the shoulder area.

A good question which a lot of people ask every year.
The top bird is moulting into its fist winter plumage. The wing and scapulars are retained juvenile, note the small black centre dots on the scapulars. These scapulers will gradually be replaced with adult type often leaving just a couple of the juvenile ones appearing as small black dots.
The bottom bird is a freshly moulted in winter adult. The feathers are stuck on the tibia of the legs because it was probably in the water up to its belly just before you photographed it out on the mud, once dry the feathers will fall back into place and a greater amount of tibia will once again be visible.

Cheers Jeff Davies.

Thanks for the reply Jeff.

I've seen quite a few birds that look like the top one over the past few weeks. They all have those same retained scapular feathers, and they all have a very brown'ish look to them, which the photo here doesn't reproduce as truely as seeing them live. Is the browner colour something that only the juvenile birds have, or do the newly arrive adults have that colouring as well?

The brown feathers are old and newly returned adults can show the brownest because the feathers are older than any juvenile at the same time of the year.

Cheers jeff.

Thanks again Jeff for your help.

G'day Jeff,

I was doing a bit of reading tonight on these guys, when I came across this comment..
Link


Is there anyway that I can tell a newly arrived juvenile from a 1 year old bird that over-wintered here?

Just posting here to prove i have done my homework.

excellent thread. thank you.