Eco Hvar

Black-winged stilts at Soline

A rare sighting of an endangered species, with thanks to Alison and Bojan Bujić.

Black-winged stilt. Black-winged stilt. Photo: J.M.Garg

Alison Bujić by e-mail 22nd April 2016. We have just returned from a lovely walk around the Soline peninsula where Bojan spotted a pair of Black-winged Stilts standing motionless in a rock-pool.  We watched them for some time with binocs, hoping to see them catch something but in the end we gave up.  They are stunning to look at with their long bright red legs - do you or your bird-expert friend know about them and are they unusual here? We had no idea what they were until we looked them up when we came home.

 

Reply from Steve Jones, April 22nd 2016: I haven't seen them here but am familiar with the bird. Soline is a bit out of "my patch", all of my watching is in and around Dol/Stari Grad due to time restrictions. I will make a note - even when I was "holidaying" I hadn't come across them before. So a good record. Looking at one of my books I would suggest quite unusual/rare to see here but certainly not impossible and I would have no reason to doubt it as they are quite distinctive.

The Croatian State Institution for Nature Protection classifies the black-winged stilt as “critically endangered“. The description certainly illustrates why this bird should be protected: 

“The black-winged stilt is a very social bird. Outside of nesting season, they remain in small flocks of 5 to 10 birds, and are occasionally included in mixed flocks with other shorebirds. They are rarely solitary. Large flocks are common at resting areas. They nest in colonies, usually containing 10 to 40 pairs. They are monogamous, with the relationship between partners lasting one nesting season. They build their nests on the ground, on islands or spits surrounded by shallow water, occasionally even on dry ground. Building the nest, incubating the eggs and raising the young is the task of both parents. The brood usually consists of four eggs that hatch in 22-23 days, and the young birds are independent within 2 to 4 weeks.

The black-winged stilt began to nest in Croatia at the end of the 20th century, and today, few of these birds nest at only a few known localities.”

 Alison, April 22nd 2016: Thank you - this is really interesting and confirms Bojan's suspicion that they may have strayed from the Neretva delta area.

Photo of black-winged stilt by J.M.Garg (Own work) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia CommonsHTML

Related items

back to top
You are here: Home environment articles Nature Watch Black-winged stilts at Soline

Eco Environment News feeds

  • England has just had its hottest June on record, Met Office data shows

    Chief scientist says dangerous heatwaves, which are getting more likely, ‘bring home the implications of climate change’

    The month of June was the hottest in England on record, driven by a searing heatwave in the final days of the month, which for the first time had red heat alerts for three days, according to Met Office data.

    The Met Office said provisional statistics showed Wales and the UK as a whole had recorded their second-warmest June since 1884.

    Continue reading...

  • Voyage to the end of the world: floating lab to explore life in Arctic adrift in ice

    An eight-month expedition will set off soon from Norway on a mission to find new species before the climate crisis and pollution changes the northern ocean for ever

    Six scientists and six crew will travel next month to Kirkenes, a remote Arctic town in Norway near the Russian border, to begin an odyssey to one of the most inhospitable, inaccessible and least-studied regions on Earth. There, they will climb onboard a futuristic, floating laboratory – the French-built Tara polar station.

    They will enter a harsh and isolating environment: months of complete darkness and temperatures as low as -50C (-58F). Arriving in Norway on 14 August, they will await good conditions and an icebreaker to open a route for them before setting off on an eight-month voyage, overwintering through long, intense polar nights onboard a 26-metre-long, 16-metre-wide vessel built to be frozen into the pack ice, which will drift slowly over the north pole to Greenland.

    Continue reading...

  • Understanding Ebola’s wildlife origins is crucial to preventing next big outbreak

    If we don’t know the source, not only do humans remain at risk but wildlife can suffer needlessly via retaliation

    While virologists and public health departments were palpitating over the news of an Andes virus infectious disease outbreak on a cruise ship (13 cases, three deaths), in the Democratic Republic of the Congo the Bundibugyo virus, the root of the current Ebola outbreak (currently more than 1,250 cases and at least 362 deaths), was smouldering under the radar.

    Bundibugyo virus is a horrifying, highly fatal pathogen. Symptom onset is sudden and includes headaches, diarrhoea, malfunctioning kidneys and liver, and, less frequently, internal and external bleeding (hence the term “haemorrhagic disease”). Grimly, contagiousness remains after death, meaning the family and loved ones of the deceased can be exposed when they wash and clothe the body in preparation for the funeral.

    Continue reading...

  • EU-approved pesticide found to have potential effects on brain development

    New study on fluazinam’s neurotoxicity comes up with different findings from earlier report based on manufacturer’s data

    Researchers who re-ran a crucial fungicide study on neurotoxicity have come up with significantly different findings, and campaigners argue that the substance should now be withdrawn from the market.

    In 2005, a study conducted by Huntingdon Life Sciences on behalf of ISK, the manufacturer of fluazinam, on the development of neurotoxicity of fluazinam in pregnant rats concluded there were no statistically significant effects in relation to brain development in the rats’ offspring.

    Continue reading...

  • Nominate your invertebrate of the year

    We’re asking people from around the world to nominate their favourite spineless species for our third Invertebrate of the Year competition

    Step aside World Cup heroes, there’s a bigger global competition in town. The whistle has been blown to launch the third Invertebrate of the Year contest.

    We want you to nominate your favourite spineless creature for the hugely popular annual Guardian jamboree which celebrates the wonder and importance of the world’s invertebrates.

    Continue reading...

  • Scientists fear seabird die-off as El Niño looms: ‘We don’t know how bad this will get’

    Many seabirds are starving to death as a marine heat wave lingers off California and fish seek deeper, cooler waters

    Within minutes of walking on a San Diego beach, marine ornithologist Tammy Russell found the feathered carcasses – one after another.

    Some were mixed in with washed up kelp. Others were under rocks.

    Continue reading...

  • Can Bolivia’s historic big cat release help change jaguar conservation in the country?

    Poaching and wildfires have driven the country’s jaguar population to a critical level, and until now even rescued animals faced life in captivity

    A tentative paw emerged from a steel cage on to the sandy riverbed deep in the Bolivian rainforest. Then, another. Slowly, the female jaguar looked right, left and right again, as if waiting to cross a busy road. Then, muscles stiff from the long journey, it strolled away and disappeared into the undergrowth.

    Yaguara had been in captivity since August 2024, after being orphaned as an eight-month-old cub amid Bolivia’s worst recorded wildfire season. As the fires raged, burning more than 10% of the country’s surface area, authorities handed the cub over to a team of veterinarians from the Comunidad Inti Wara Yassi (CIWY), a wild-animal rescue centre.

    Continue reading...

  • Weatherwatch: how thunder is made

    Sound of thunder varies depending on distance of listener from lightning as atmosphere muffles and absorbs sound

    A bolt of lightning heats the air almost instantly to as high as 30,000C, causing explosive expansion and a supersonic shock wave that becomes thunder. What that thunder sounds like to a listener depends largely on where they are.

    Nearby lightning produces a distinctive snap or crack, or a startling explosive boom. Large, complex lightning with multiple segments generates a peal of thunder, a series of booms of different pitches as the sound from each of the segments reaches you in turn.

    Continue reading...

  • Listen to Britain’s dawn chorus of 1976: the dramatic loss of birdsong in 50 years

    Guardian recreates audio landscape of past filled by loud morning symphony before 73m wild birds were lost

    Imagine a deafening abundance of birdsong so loud it wakes your children at dawn; the chirrup of house sparrows, the chattering of starlings, the melody of the wren, and the clear high-pitched flute of blackbirds saturating the garden, reverberating around your local park, dominating your neighbourhood from early morning to evening twilight.

    So loud is the song of the thrush that the naturalist and ornithologist WH Hudson wrote in 1919 that he was grateful when observing one that it was perched on a tree at a distance from his home, “so that when I woke at half past three or four o’clock, the shrill indefatigable voice came in at the open window, softened by distance and washed by the dewy atmosphere to greater purity”.

    Continue reading...

  • As seas rise, American history could be washed away

    In Jamestown, Virginia, one of the most important places in American history is in a race against time from rising waters

    Sean Romo stops digging the moment he sees a faint line emerge in the sandy Virginia soil.

    It’s just a slight change in color, but to Romo, director of archaeology for Jamestown Rediscovery, it may be another piece of America’s origin story.

    Climate Central is an independent group of scientists and communicators who research and report the facts about our changing climate and how it affects people’s lives

    Continue reading...

Eco Health News feeds

Eco Nature News feeds

Copyright © 2026 Eco Hvar. All Rights Reserved. Developed by Orion Informatika.