Black-necked Stilt

About the Black-necked Stilt

The Black-necked Stilt is the most improbably built shorebird on the continent - a slim black-and-white wader on absurdly long, thin pink legs, with a needle-fine black bill and a big dark eye. Only flamingos have longer legs relative to body size, and a stilt picking its way through a shallow pond looks like it is walking on stilts, hence the name.

Stilts wade belly-deep in shallow fresh and brackish water, delicately picking insects and small crustaceans from the surface, and they are loud, nervous birds that yelp a sharp "kek-kek-kek" and dive-bomb anything near the nest. Pairs and small groups are the rule; nesting birds fake broken wings to lead intruders away.

In Texas the Black-necked Stilt is a year-round bird of the coast and the Rio Grande Valley and a summer breeder at inland ponds and flooded fields, common on the shallow impoundments at Estero Llano Grande and the coastal refuges.