The American Avocet
The American Avocet (Recurvirostra americana) is a member of
the Recurvirostridae Family. According to Peterson, this
family includes "slender wading birds with very long legs and very slender
bills (bent upward in avocets)." The avocet and one other species, the
Black Necked Stilt (Hymantopus mexicanus), are the only
members of this family in the western states.
The avocet is a large shorebird (16" to 20" in length, wingspread to 38",
bill to 4", and bare legs to 6 1/2"), with a striking black and white
pattern. The pale gray head and neck of winter become pinkish tan to rusty
in the breeding season. The sexes are alike, but females are slightly
smaller. The legs and bill are blue. Feet are webbed, and they swim easily.
The habitat includes the brackish waters, marshes, mudflats, alkaline lakes,
ponds, and, in winter, coastal bays. The simple nest rimmed with grass or
weed stems is placed in a shallow depression on sand, near shallow water or
on a platform of grasses on a mudflat. Three to four eggs are laid. They
are olive to light brown, and blotched with dark brown. Incubation is 24 to
25 days. The parents are devoted to the young, and send up shrill screams
when their area is approached. They perform a variety of antics (including
dive bombing) to distract the intruder.
The food of the avocet is largely aquatic animal life including mollusks,
crustaceans, predacious water beetles, insect larvae and large numbers of
grasshoppers and other insects harmful to agriculture. It is interesting to
watch them striding about in shallow water, swinging their long bills to
and fro like a scythe. Plant material eaten is mainly the seeds of pondweed.
The avocet is the most showy of all the American shore birds, especially in
the breeding plumage. The sexes are alike. The head and neck are a bright
cinnamon, or pinkish tan (in winter a pale gray). The body is white, and the
wings have a striking black and white pattern. It is a large (16" to 20"),
slender wading bird with very long legs and a long, slender awl-like bill,
upcurved as in the godwit. Their habitat includes beaches, marshes, mud
flats, alkaline lakes, ponds, and in winter the coastal bays of southern
United States to Guatamala.
The breeding season is May or early June. The nest is a depression on the
ground, lined with grass, or a platform of grass on a mud flat. Three to
eight olive blotched eggs are laid. Only one brood is reared in a season.
Like the prococious young of other wading birds, the little buffy and
white chicks, soon after hatching, are running around picking up food. When
intruders come near the avocet's nest, the parents circle overhead with
cries of distress, and also may feign injury, bumping along the ground for
short distances in order to draw attention away from the nest site.
In their feeding habits avocets keep apart, but cross each other's paths
in various directions, all silent and showing no enmity toward each other.
But when a sandpiper approaches, they will instantly give chase to it.
Dr. J. H. Paul makes these interesting observations: "In company with the
stilt and willet, the avocet wades about and probes the muddy bottoms of
lakes in search of water insects and worms, which constitutes its favorite
food. Avocets are not at all shy, and permit a close inspection, especially
with field glasses.
"Being a true wader, it seems to mow the bottom of shallow ponds with a
scythe-like motion of the head and bill, sweeping from left to right,
feeding and probing in the mud for food, which his sensitive bill dislodges.
Snails are a part of their food, and they also catch flying insects, running
after them with wings partially outstretched.
"Having the three front toes webbed, the avocet is able to swim the deepest
water as gracefully as he walks on land. This species has the same peculiar
habit when alighting as the terns and plovers, of raising its wings until
they meet over the back before folding them away at its side. The color of
its slate blue legs and feet explains the name "blue shanks" or "blue
stockings".
"Fortunately for the species and also for us," writes T. Gilbert Pearson,
"the regulations under the Federal Migratory Bird Law now prohibit killing
of an avocet. This is but one of the many wise provisions in that statute;
and there is every reason to believe that the enactment of this law
bespeaks a brighter day for the avocet, as well as for many other species
of shore birds that in the past have been sorely persecuted."
-- by Marie L. Atkinson
REFERENCES:
Field Guide to Western Birds
Roger Tory Peterson
The Avocet
T. Gilbert Pearson
Out-of-Doors In the West
J. H. Paul
Introduction to Western Birds
Lillian Grace Paca (A Sunset Book)