Birds On Stilts: Reflection Hunters Contest 145

Black-winged stilts are well named both for their wing colour and those incredibly long, delicate legs, which are perfect for wading around in shallow water while the slightly upturned beak shifts the water surface for insects.

For people who know them they are usually a favourite because they never fail to look beautiful moving around in a kind of dainty water ballet. They are so delicate you couldn't imagine them being aggressive but they do occasionally have minor tussles with each other that are more about display than actually coming to blows.

Where I live in Thailand we are very lucky as they are very common here and I see them every week, sometimes every day. When the field next door was flooded we could even watch them from the kitchen window! And they are large enough and distinct enough to watch without the need for binoculars.

They are happy in any sizeable water that isn't deeper than about six inches so flooded paddy-fields are a regular hangout for them. In this case I took these photos in an area of salt-pans near the coast which is famous for all sorts of wading birds visiting for the winter. You can see some of the smaller, harder to identify birds in the background. However, these black-winged stilts are one of the few that stay with us all year.

These shallow kinds of water happen to be excellent places for good reflections as their surface doesn't get as disturbed by waves and ripples as deeper ponds or lakes.