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The St. Johns River The Intracoastal and Beyond
Black Neck Stilt

Black-Necked Stilts
We don't very often see Black-Necked Stilts, but with the water so low sandbars make good hunting grounds and we saw this pair helping themselves to a good lunch.

Black-Necked StiltThe Black-Necked Stilt likes fresh or salty shallow areas and grassy marshes. It is a tall, small bodied wading bird, black above and white below, with very long, bright pink legs.

Stilts run very fast, but then stop suddenly, bend their long legs and pick up something from the ground. They look quite unusual when they do this - their little bodies look like they are going up in an elevator as their legs raise them straight up and just keep going and going!

Their food consists of things like water snails, insects, worms, water beetles,grasshoppers and their larvae, mussels, grass shrimp, minnows and crawdads.

They build their nests in May, on a dry mud flat or on a hummock in the marsh where they have a clear view all around. They build their nests of old grass and gradually add to its height with dry twigs, grass roots, shells, and other debris until the whole nest may weigh two or three pounds. When you live in a marsh you need to worry about high water flooding the house!

While the females are sitting, the males watch for and chase away intruders.

What I thought was particularly interesting about this bird is that , living in a hot environment, they have a great way to cool off the nest. What they do is called "belly-soaking". They carry water in their ventral feathers to the nest...sometimes more than 100 trips in a day!

<<< Lowell Silverman identified this bird for me. He has some very nice bird photos on his site.>>>

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