Sleight of Wing 
Avocets and stilts employ a dazzling repertoire of distraction displays 
to deceive potential predators. Even ornithologists have been fooled 
by Tex A. Sordahl 
Among the most striking features of 
animals are those concerned with pre- 
dation, a point not lost on early natural- 
ists, who were greatly impressed with 
“fang-and-claw” biology. Birds of prey 
tearing away at their victims with pow- 
erful, piercing talons and bloody, 
hooked beaks were common images in 
avian lore. This emphasis on the weap- 
ons of such raptors as eagles and fal- 
cons, while overblown, was perhaps 
understandable. The defensive strate- 
gies that have evolved among some of 
the prey, however, are at least as fasci- 
nating to the careful observer as the at- 
tack of a predator. Consider the 
American avocet, with a bill shaped 
like a shoemaker’s awl (hence the collo- 
quial name awlbill), and the black- 
necked stilt, whose wading apparatus 
has earned it the name longshanks. 
While such features aid the birds in 
preying on aquatic invertebrates, it 
seems ironic that they limit the birds’ 
ability to deal with their own predators. 
Slender, sensitive bills, adapted for de- 
tecting by touch small prey in muddy 
water, have little utility as weapons; the 
same is true of long, slender legs. 
If avocets and stilts cannot produce a 
strong offense as a defense, neither can 
they find hiding places or refuges from 
predators on the open ponds and shore- 
lines they frequent. Black-and-white 
plumage poised atop long, grayish blue 
or red legs makes both avocets and 
stilts prominent features of their open 
habitats. The attributes that gave rise to 
the old vernacular names for American 
avocets — Irish snipe, white curlew, 
blue-stocking — make them anything 
but inconspicuous. 
Early American hunters ranked avo- 
The slender legs and upturned bill of 
an American avocet are poor weapons 
with which to repel predators. When 
its eggs or chicks are in danger, 
however, the avocet performs a series 
of displays to befuddle a predator. 
Tom Bledsoe 
43 
