Beto/Pixabay. • A black-necked stilt wades through a wetland area.

I received an email from Brayden Paulk updating me on his new birding adventures since moving to Gulf Shores in Alabama. I wrote a few weeks ago about Brayden and his plans for a Global Big Day of birding.

“I wanted to give you an update on the Big Day,” he wrote, informing me that he has been undergoing a lot of training for a new job and has had lots of 10-plus hour days. But birding has been productive.

“I got down here and I’ve had lots of success,” he wrote. “Where I live there are black-bellied whistling ducks hanging out by the pond, and prothonotary warblers in the swamp behind the apartment,” he said.

Unfortunately, his new job needed him to work on the date of his Big Day.

“So I was not able to do my plans,” he wrote. “However, I did get to go out for a few hours that afternoon to a nearby sod farm. I picked up several good birds, including spotted sandpiper, solitary sandpiper and, most importantly, black-necked stilt.”

Brayden reported that he observed two stilts working the edge of a flooded corner of the field along with dozens of other shorebirds that were too small to identify in low light.

“I was glad that I could do my part to submit one checklist on the Big Day, even if I couldn’t do a 24-hour birding marathon like I had planned,” he added.

He added that his best birding day recently took place two days prior to his planned Global Big Day.

“I got to meet some folks from Alabama Audubon when they came to the Eco Center,” he said. “After the tour, I was invited to go do some sea watching with them at Gulf State Park.”

He noted that the three guys on the impromptu session included Scott Duncan, the director of Alabama Audubon, and two top birders in Baldwin County.

“They were very helpful and wonderful people,” Brayden shared. “While we were out birding, I picked up two lifers: Gull-billed tern and semipalmated sandpiper.”

Bryan Stevens • Black-necked skimmers take flights along the South Carolina coast.

He also reported that they saw lots of other cool coastal birds, such as black skimmer, least tern and osprey.

“The coolest species, though, were two red knots,” he said. “I had only seen them once before, but this was my first time seeing them in breeding plumage. I was very excited to see it, and get two lifers in one day!”

He is also anticipating some future birding.

“My friend Don has a rare shiny cowbird at his house a few miles away from me, as well as Inca doves.”

I enjoyed hearing about Brayden’s sightings of shorebirds, a family of birds also known with a little more creative flair as “wind birds.” They are so named because so many species are capable of incredible long-distance migrations. His success with the black-necked stilts reminded me of how this can be an elusive species for birders.

My last sighting of black-necked stilts took place more than a decade ago in May of 2014 during a South Carolina vacation. I observed three black-necked stilts at Huntington Beach State Park while walking on a marsh boardwalk near the park’s Nature Center. They flew toward the causeway, so I got into my car and drove there to try to re-locate them. I did find two of the stilts feeding along the causeway, but I never managed to re-locate the third bird.

Photo by Bryan Stevens
Two Black-necked Stilts forage along the causeway wetland at Huntington Beach State Park in 2014. 

I watched the two stilts foraging for food in shallow water shared by egrets and alligators. The two birds, despite a somewhat gangly appearance, moved with elegantly efficient strides on their long pink legs.

I have seen this unusual shorebird in Tennessee only once on Oct. 13, 2004, at Austin Springs on Boone Lake in Washington County. The bird, first found by Rick Knight, drew many excited birders to the location for looks at this shorebird before it departed to continue its migration flight south.

As you might imagine, land-locked Tennessee is not an ideal location for finding shorebirds, but spring and fall migration brings a surprising variety of these birds through Northeast Tennessee. Black-necked stilts, however, are a rarity. I have also seen this species of shorebird on Fripp Island, South Carolina, as well as just outside of Wendover, Nevada, on a visit to the Bonneville Salt Flats.

The world of shorebirds has produced many look-alike species, including many of the small sandpipers often collectively labeled as “peeps” by birders. The black-necked stilt, however, is not at all likely to be confused with any other shorebird. It is a slender bird atop a pair of extremely long pink legs. It has a two-tone appearance with black upper parts and white underparts. The black and white dichotomy continues along the bird’s long neck and head. This bird also has a thin, needle-shaped bill that it uses to delicately pluck aquatic insects and other prey from water or mud. The black-necked stilt’s long pink legs are exceptional. In fact, this species has he second-longest legs in proportion to their bodies of any bird, exceeded only by flamingos, according to the website All About Birds.

The black-necked stilt is closely related to the American avocet, another long-legged shorebird. The two species are classified together in the family, recurvirostridae. There’s also a Hawaiian sub-species of the black-necked stilt known as the “aeʻo.”

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To share a sighting, make a comment or ask a question, email me at ahoodedwarbler@aol.com.