WATER BIRDS. 



Family 25. RECURVIROSTRID.E. Stilts and Avocets. 



KEY TO SPECIES. 



A. Front toe fully webbed, hind toe present. Avocet. No. 89. 

 AA. Front toes slightly webbed, no hind toe. Stilt. No. 90. 



89. Avocet. Recurvirostra americana Gmel. (225) 



Synonyms: American Avocet. — Recurvirostra occidentalis, Vig., 1829. — Recurvirostras 

 americana of most authors. 



Recognized at once by the sharp, slender, snipe-like bill turned up toward 

 the tip very decidedly. It can be mistaken for no other bird, except possibly 

 for the Black-necked Stilt, but the latter species has the bill slightly or not 

 at all turned upward, and has the back of the neck clear black while the 

 Avocet has the neck cinnamon or white. 



Distribution. — Temperate North America, north to the Saskatchewan 

 and Great Slave Lake; in winter south to Guatemala and the West Indies. 

 Rare in the eastern United States. 



One of our very rare waders, and apparently much less common now 

 than formerly. " W. H. Collins records one specimen taken at St. Clair 

 Flats in 1874, and preserved in the collection of the Audubon Club, in the 

 Museum of the Detroit Scientific Association" (Gibbs, American Field, 

 Nov. 10, 1894). Mr. B. H. Swales writes me from Detroit (May 28, 1906) 

 "There is an Avocet at Campion's which Collins mounted, and it may be 

 the same bird that he is understood to have taken at the Flats. Campion 

 tells me that when he came here he secured a lot of Collins' birds and that 

 there was a list with data, but this was destroyed." According to Moseley 

 there is, or was, a specimen in the Kent Scientific Institute at Grand Rapids, 

 and Dr. R. H. Wolcott writes that the specimen was collected in that 

 immediate vicinity. In November, 1905, I found a mounted specimen 

 of the Avocet in the Kent Scientific iMuseum, bearing the catalogue number 

 20220, but with absolutely no data from which its origin could be traced. 



There are several records for Toronto, Ont., a number for Wisconsin 

 (Kumlien and Hollister p. 42), and it has been taken in Indiana, Ohio, 

 and Ilhnois (Butler's Birds of Indiana, 1897, p. 695). It is not known to 

 nest in Michigan, and occurs probably only during the northward migration 

 in May and the southward migration is September and October. It is 

 an abundant species about the alkaUne lakes of the Great l^asin region of 

 the west, and occurs frequently of late years in the irrigated regions of 

 Arizona and southern California. It may nest anywhere in the United 

 States. The nest is placed on the ground; the eggs are three or four, pale 

 olive or bufTy olive, thickly spotted with l)rown and black, and averaging 

 1.93 by 1.35 inches. 



In habits the Avocet much resembles the Yellow-legs, frequenting sand 

 bars, mud flats and the shallow margins of lakes and streams, where it 

 feeds like a sandpiper on the minute animal life of the shores, or wades 

 about in the water gleaning aquatic insects, crustaceans and other forms 

 from the bottom. Profes.sor Aughey found many locusts in the stomachs 

 of two taken in Sarpy county, Nebraska, in Sei)temlier 1874, and one taken 

 in Richardson county, Nebraska in September 1873, had 71 insects of 

 various kinds in its stomach (1st Rep. U. S. Entom. Com. App. 2, p. 50). 



