On May 22, 2022 birders spotted 2 Black-necked Stilts at Cape Sable Island, Nova Scotia. This is a rare species to show up anywhere in Atlantic Canada. When they do appear, birders 'flock' from near and far to see them. Where did they come from and where are they going?
Stilts and Avocets are members of the Recurvirostridae family. Stilts are officially listed as 'accidental' in New Brunswick and Avocets as 'casual', according to the Birds of New Brunswick: An Annotated List. There have been few records over the years of Black-necked Stilts in New Brunswick. There was one from the mouth of the St. Croix River in 1862; one from Maces Bay in 1880; three near Woodstock in 1982; and one from Jacquet River in 2000.
The reason I call this species my 'nemesis bird' is that I have been hoping for most of my birding life to see this species. Trips to western North America can easily produce sightings but I have not been in the right place at the right time. The Jacquet River specimen is the closest I have come. A group from Fredericton drove up to see the bird on 6 June, 2000 and we missed the bird by 15 minutes! It was there 15 minutes before we arrived and was gone when we scanned the area. We drove 4 hours each way only to miss the bird! Such is the makings of birding stories.
I have watched many American Avocets over the years from singles to small flocks at once hoping to find a Black-necked Stilt with them, which often happens. No luck. I keep trying and hopefully will be lucky enough to get my binoculars trained on a beautiful Black-necked Stilt someday.
The Black-necked Stilt is a unique-looking species. It is 33 cm long with a 6.4 cm bill and the tarsus is 11.3 cm long. It is boldly pied with black above and white below. It has long pink or sometimes red legs and there is a white spot above and behind the eye which shows well on the black crown and face. The bill is long, needle-like and black in colour. The female is duller with brownish tones. Note the black on the upper/dorsal neck which is important to note in order to distinguish the Black-necked Stilt from the much rarer Black-winged Stilt which very rarely shows up in North America from Eurasia. The American Avocet shares the same habitat as the Black-necked Stilt but it is bulkier with an orange or gray head and much more white on it.
The Black-necked Stilt is a graceful wader that looks very elegant. In fact, one wonders how it manages those long legs. It is highly social and feeds in water picking insects and other invertebrates from the surface. It feeds by sight so you don't often see it probing the mud like some shorebirds do. You might see large numbers of them feeding in good feeding areas on their normal range. They will aggressively mob both aerial and terrestrial predators when threatened, even humans. I think I would like to be mobbed by a group of Black-necked Stilts, especially if I had my camera in hand! This species is noisy on the breeding grounds and less so during migration or in winter. Their voice is a loud kek, kek, kek, kek. In flight you would see the long pink legs trailing out behind and the plumage a bold black and white. The wings are pointed and the wing beats are often halting.
The Black-necked Stilt breeding range includes Washington State, Alberta, Oklahoma, and Virginia south throughout lowland areas to northern South America and the West Indies. They winter in California, the Gulf coast and southern Florida south to the tropics. Vagrants can be found in southern Canada and Bermuda.
Black-necked Stilts breed in loose colonies in shallow, marshy lakes and coastal salt ponds. Non-breeders move along with the breeding birds. The nest is a shallow depression in the ground lined with grass and shell fragments. Three to five yellow or buff eggs spotted with brown are incubated by both adults for 22 to 25 days. The young, when they get their feathers, are grizzled-looking, paler than the adults with buff-edged feathers and greyish pink legs. Stilts feed in both fresh and salt water on tadpoles, mollusks, aquatic insects, snails, small fish, flying insects and seeds.
The Black-necked Stilt species was first described in 1776 by Philipp Ludwig Statius Muller, a German zoologist. Black-necked Stilts can swim but they usually do not. It is interesting to note that Black-necked Stilts have the second longest legs in proportion to their bodies of any avian species. Can you guess which species has the longest? ... flamingos.
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