Sandpiper
Sandpiper - OE stint
Another seemingly obvious one, because stint, unchanged from Old English, is indeed the name applied to various members of the genus Calidris in the sandpiper family today, and it fits because stint (thought to be from the OE verb styntan ‘to blunt or dull’, hence to make small, probably related to ‘stunt’) does refer to teeny waders. But, we only have stint in place-names, and so we can’t immediately assume that just because the word exists in modern English attached to a particular genus that this is indeed how medieval people used it. We can safely say the name does refer to a bird, given the generic topographical element it is combined with in place-name. None of the surviving examples are coastal, however, so if stint did refer to a sandpiper, we’re probably looking at the common sandpiper, which would make a certain degree of sense with those place-names associating the bird in question with rivers. Certainly, dunlin, the bird with which OE stint is usually connected (because the name has been a local term for dunlin in more modern times in eastern counties), would be an odd spot in the sorts of inland locations where we find these place-names. The shrill piping and dashing flight of that bird breeding and feeding on fast-flowing rivers as it still does in western or northerly parts of the UK would likely have been a more common encounter.
All the stint place-names do refer directly or indirect to water sources, or are in places where rivers are nearby. Perhaps, then, stint may have been applied to other characteristically small, darting water birds in these sorts of habitats, such as dippers and wagtails?
Stinchcombe (Glos)
Stinsford (Dor)
Sandpipers (or whatever species this name covers) appear in charters relating to the following places: North Newnton, Wilts (10th cen.).
Sources (see ‘About’ page for the full bibliography): Watts, Cambridge Dictionary; Ekwall, Oxford Dictionary; epns.nottingham.ac.uk; landscape.org.uk.