Bird lore - Project Puffin

BLACK-NECKED STILT
By T. GILBERT PEARSON
Cf)e J^ational Hsfsfociation ot HulJution ^otittita
EDUCATIONAL LEAFLET NO. 89
One of the characteristic birds of the shallow sloughs and grassy marshes
of the western part of the United States is the Black-necked Stilt. Its dis-
tribution is not general throughout its range, for the very good reason that
suitable feeding-places are few and scattered. As this bird gathers its food by
running about in shallow water, one would hardly expect to find it on lakes
where the water is deep to the shore-line, or on those marsh-bordered lakes
where the tules grow high as a man's head. It haunts chiefly little ponds
where the water is so shallow that it can wade all over them.
Alexander Wilson, the ornithologist, writes: "There is a striking affinity
between this bird and the common Avocet, not only in the peculiar form of the
bill, nostrils, tongue, legs, feet, wings, and tail, but extending to the voice,
manners, food, place of breeding, form of nest, arid even the very color of the
eggs of both, all of which are strikingly alike." There is, however, a very decided
difference in the color of the two birds. When the Black-necked Stilt is stand-
ing it appears to be wholly white below, and entirely black above, the line of
demarcation being very distinctly drawn down each side of the neck and along
the boundary formed by the lower edge of the wing in repose. This Stilt is one
of the largest representatives of the Order LimicolcB, or Shore-birds, measur-
ing about fifteen inches from bill-tip to tail-tip. It also possesses remarkably
long and very slender legs. The delicately pointed bill is not so long as that
of the Avocet, and shows but slight tendency to curve upward towards the end.
In the breeding-season Stilts usually associate in httle communities of four
to six pairs. Writing of the nesting-habits of some of these birds, which Wilson
studied on the coast of New Jersey in the early part of the last century, he says
"About the first week in May they begin to construct their nests, which are at first
slightly formed of a small quantity of old grass, scarcely sufiicient to keep the eggs
from the wet marsh. As they lay and sit, however, either dreading the rise of the tides,
or for some other purpose, the nest is increased in height with dry twigs of a shrub very
common in the marshes, roots of the salt grass, seaweed, and various other substances,
the whole weighing between two and three pounds. This habit of adding new material
to the nest after the female begins sitting is common to almost all other birds that breed
in the marshes. The eggs are four in number of a dark, yellowish clay color thickly
marked with large blotches of black. These nests are often placed within fifteen or
twenty yards of each other; but the greatest harmony seems to prevail among the
proprietors."
These birds today may be regarded as virtually extinct in New Jersey.
All those representatives of the race that come to this region to breed ap-
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