Amateur ornithologist Gregory Mathews interpreted this as Victoria, while Erwin Stresemann concluded this was Rottnest Island in Western Australia.

[2][5] Belgian ornithologist Bernard du Bus de Gisignies described it as a new genus and species, Leptorhynchus pectoralis, to the Royal Academy of Belgium in 1835.

[6] English zoologist George Robert Gray placed the banded stilt in its own genus Cladorhynchus in 1840, noting that the name Leptorhynchus had been previously used.

[8] John Gould had described the banded stilt as Himantopus palmatus in 1837, but recorded it as Cladorhynchus pectoralis in his 1865 work Handbook to the Birds of Australia.

[12] Gregory Mathews in his 1913 List of the Birds of Australia synonymised all subsequent genus and species names, using Cladorhynchus australis.

[16] English naturalist John Latham gave the bird the name "oriental avocet" in 1824, after Cuvier's description.

Adults in breeding plumage are predominantly white with black wings and a broad well-demarcated u-shaped chestnut band across the breast.

[20] Non-breeding plumage is similar, but the chest band is less distinct and often diluted to an ashy brown or mottled with white.

[23] Juvenile birds resemble adults but have a greyish forehead and lores, duller black wings, and lack the characteristic breast band.

[27] The banded stilt has been recorded in southeastern South Australia, as well as the drainage of the Lake Eyre system, and in Victoria west of Port Phillip and the Wimmera.

[28] The Natimuk-Douglas Wetlands in western Victoria are an important nesting ground for the species, though lower numbers come here if there is flooding elsewhere in southeastern Australia.

[32] Even then they remained poorly known until 2012, when researcher Reece Pedler and colleagues attached tracking devices to 21 birds to gain an insight into the species' movements.

An exception to this exists where some breeding was attempted at The Coorong during a time in which salinity in the Lower Lakes was significantly elevated due to reduced environmental flows down the Murray River.

[33] Breeding events are initiated by the filling of shallow inland lakes after rainfall and resultant explosion in numbers of food animals such as Parartemia brine shrimp.

[34] On hot days with temperatures over 40 °C (104 °F), incubating birds may leave briefly to wet their brood patches to presumably cool the eggs or young.

[36] The nestlings are born covered in white down—unlike any other waders—and mobile with open eyes (precocial) and leave the nest soon after hatching (nidifugous).

[36] Banded stilt colonies suffer greatly from predation by silver gulls (Chroicocephalus novaehollandiae), while wedge-tailed eagles (Aquila audax), white-bellied sea eagles (Haliaeetus leucogaster), spot-bellied eagle-owls (Bubo nipalensis) and black falcons (Falco subniger) also take stilts and young.

[34] Premature drying of the lakes leads to parents abandoning their eggs or nestlings, resulting in the deaths of many thousands of young.

[39] The listing was made after breeding attempts observed at Lake Eyre revealed heavy predation from silver gulls.

The Department of Environment, Water and Natural Resources has developed a strategy for managing silver gull predation at chosen banded stilt breeding sites by applying site-specific culling measures.

Breeding events observed at ephemeral lakes in Western Australia have proven to be more successful without the need for intervention due to their remoteness.