Beak of the Week – Black-necked Stilt

Black-necked Stilts are striking, elegant shorebirds; they are white below with black wings, backs, and heads. Their exceptionally long legs are bright bubblegum pink. They are quite vocal and conspicuous, especially during the breeding season.

Black-necked Stilts favor shallow, open wetlands with little vegetation, and may be found in saltmarshes, mudflats, sewage ponds, and flooded agricultural fields. They feed primarily on aquatic invertebrates, but are also known to eat fish. They have a rather extensive distribution, and breed in western and southern North America and throughout Central and South America and the Caribbean. They nest on the ground, usually on a small island or clump of vegetation above the surface of the water. Black-necked Stilts are fiercely protective of their nests and chicks; adults will perform distraction displays to draw ground predators away from eggs and young, and will mob and strike both ground and aerial predators. They will also perform “popcorn displays”, in which a group of nesting adults will form a circle around a ground predator and flap their wings and call to drive it away from a nest or chicks.

A subspecies of Black-necked Stilt found in Hawai’i, known as Ae’o, is currently endangered due to a variety of factors, including overhunting, invasive species (including ground predators and invasive plants that encroach upon open wetlands), and destruction of wetlands. Black-necked Stilt populations in North America are apparently stable, though destruction of the wetland habitats these birds rely on is a major concern. Pollution and invasive species also reduce the number of high-quality open wetlands for stilts to breed and forage in. Black-necked Stilts are year-round residents along the Gulf Coast, and can be found at Bolivar Flats Shorebird Sanctuary and along the Shoveler Pond Loop at Anahuac National Wildlife Refuge.