Recurvirostra americana

A large slender shorebird with a long, slender, recurved bill (longer and straighter in males than in females), long spindly legs, and a long neck; wings and back are boldly patterned with black and white; belly and flanks are white; head and neck and rusty in breeding plumage, gray in basic plumage; juveniles have a cinnamon wash on the head and neck; average length 46 cm (NGS 1983).

No other North American shorebird with a recurved bill has both a white belly and bold black and white patterning on the folded wings and back.

Lowland marshes, mudflats, ponds, alkaline lakes, and estuaries (AOU 1983). At Humboldt Bay, California, wintering birds used intertidal mud flats (mainly for for feeding and resting), a sewage oxidation pond (mainly for feeding and secondarily as a source of fresh water), high elevation mud flats (early high tide roost), and islands in a brackish lake (primary high tide roost); typically roosted on shallow, submerged bars of islands in deep nontidal ponds or less often in shallow water or on exposed mud near the water's edge of tidal mud flats (Evans and Harris 1994). Availability of sewage oxidation pond at Humboldt Bay enhanced habitat; the wintering population increased from 30-35 in 1960 (before pond construction) to 500-800 in the 1980s (after pond construction) (Evans and Harris 1994). In coastal South Carolina, most nonbreeding birds used habitats with water 10-17 cm deep (and relatively stable level) and little or no exposed substrate; among several brackish ponds, salinity was not an important factor in habitat selection (Boettcher et al. 1995).

Usually nests on open flats or areas with scattered tufts of grass on islands or along lakes (especially alkaline) and marshes. Readily nests on artificial islands (such as those created for waterfowl) in impoundments (Giroux 1985).

In Northwest Territories, Kuyt and Johns (1992) found two instances of avocet eggs in gull nests.

Breeding begins in mid-April in the south, as late as mid-May in the north. Clutch size usually is 3-4. Incubation lasts 23-25 days, by both sexes. Young are precocial, tended by both adults, independent in about 6 weeks. Nests usually in a loose colony.