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Temminck's Stints are very small waders. Their plumage is highly cryptic. During the non-breeding season they are all grey and white. The head, neck and chest are almost all-grey, except for a pale eye-ring and small pale spots on the frons. The front (belly, vent, undertail coverts) is white. The back is grey; only the wing feathers show a chestnut hue and have thin central dark stripes. During the breeding season the head, neck, chest and back all take on a chestnut-brown base, with striation on the head and chest and scalloping on the back. The lower front remains white. The eyes have dark irises. The dark-grey bill is slightly downcurved and a bit shorter than the size of the head. The legs and feet are yellow-olive. In flight the feet protrude slightly beyond the tail. Juvenile Temminck's Stints have a white front, from the throat down to the undertail coverts. The rest of the plumage is similar to non-breeding adults.

The correct identification of waders ("shorebirds"), e.g. of the Calidris, Tringa, Actitis etc. or of the Charadrius, Pluvialis and related genera in the field can be quite tricky. We have therefore made an attempt to give some advice HERE.

The overall distribution of this species can be assessed, and specific locations where birds have been spotted can be found, based on individual sighting reports submitted by birdwatchers to ebird.org .

The global distribution of Temminck's Stint is available HERE .

Temminck's Stint are a strongly migratory species. They breed in a wide area from subarctic northern Scandinavia eastward all the way through northern Asia (to about 80 degrees latitude) to the Bering Sea and the northern base of the Kamchatka peninsula. They spend the northern winters in more southern areas. A small number stay in isolated areas around the Mediterranean, mostly in Spain, southern Sardinia, Italy and Greece, but also Tunisia, while most migrate to the Nile river valley and tropical sub-Saharan Africa and the eastern highlands. Others spend the winters in the Euphrates/Tigris lowlands, parts of southern Iran and around the Arabian peninsula. A large part of the population migrates to southern Asia, from the border of Pakistan with India eastwards, in a broad near-coastal strip around the entire subcontinent, into the Ganges river system in Bangladesh, and on into much of South-east Asia, including Taiwan and the southern half of Borneo.

Temminck's Stints are summer breeding migrants to northern Scandinavia (coastal northern Norway, the northernmost tip of the Baltic Sea, the Kola peninsula) and northern European Russia. In Europe there are only a few winter quarters of Temminck's Stints along the Mediterranean coastline from south-eastern Spain via parts of Sardinia and Sicily, the lower Po river valley and parts of the Apulian coastline to some spots along the Greek coastline.

M. Eaton reports spotting a Temminck's Stint near Tromso airport, Tromso, Norway, in June 2018.

D. Wilczynska reports finding a Temminck's Stint along the river Bug, near Malkinia, Masovia, Poland, in July 2019.

A. Sarok found a Temminck's Stint in Vojvodina, Serbia, in the timeframe 2010-2024.

J. Pires spotted a Temminck's Stint in Vila Franca de Xira, Tejo estuary, Portugal, in November 2025.

A Temminck's Stint has also been seen by us in Oman.

Click here for sighting information from Oman