Red-necked Stint

13-16 cm. Non-breeding: tiny plain grey-brown and whitish wader with black legs and straight, gently tapering black bill, slightly swollen at tip. Shadowy dark line from bill through eye separates small white area over bill and subtle whitish eyebrow from whitish throat. Upperparts grey-brown with fine dark shaft-streaks; underparts whitish with grey-brown zone on sides of upperbreast. Breeding Plumage: face, throat, neck and upperbreast plain, unmarked salmon-pink to pinkish chestnut, leaving small pale area around base of bill. (Moulting birds may have dark mottlings across breast.) Feathers of back and mantle grey with black centres at first ('prebreeding'), then acquire bright chestnut and white fringes; but wing coverts and tertiaries mostly remain grey-brown. Juvenile: like nonbreeding, but brighter, with warm buff feather margins, especially on mantle, upper wing coverts and tertials. Less richly patterned than imm. Little Stint, and without such bold white Vs on back. Parties or large, dense flocks wheel, plunge and run about, feeding with sewing-machine action. In flight, strong white wingbar diffuses on blackish primaries, sides of rump white, rump and centre of tail black and pointed.