Species: Recurvirostra americana

American Avocet

Species

Birds

Show on Lists

Species of concern in the Salish Sea

Salish Sea-reliant birds

Terrestrial vertebrates: birds

Encyclopedia of Puget Sound

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).

Classification

Kingdom

Animalia

Phylum

Craniata

Class

Aves

Order

Charadriiformes

Family

Recurvirostridae

Genus

Recurvirostra

NatureServe

Source:
ELEMENT_GLOBAL.2.100007

Classification

Other Global Common Names

Avoceta Americana - avocette d'Amérique

Informal Taxonomy

Animals, Vertebrates - Birds - Shorebirds

Formal Taxonomy

Animalia - Craniata - Aves - Charadriiformes - Recurvirostridae - Recurvirostra

Ecology and Life History

Migration

true - true - true - May be nonmigratory in certain southern portions of range. Northern interior breeding populations make extensive seasonal migrations. Migrates mainly through western U.S. At Humboldt Bay California, arrives late-August to mid-November, departs February to late April and early May (Evans and Harris 1994).

Non-migrant

true

Locally Migrant

true

Food Comments

Walks slowly through the water; often feeding in flocks that number 12-300 birds. Eats a variety of aquatic insects and their larvae, crustaceans, and seeds of aquatic plants, obtained mainly from soft muddy bottom or water surface. May extend head, or dive, under surface of water while feeding. During fall-winter-spring at Humboldt Bay, California, foraged on intertidal mud flats within 3 km of roosts, usually within 100 m of tide edge, most often when tide levels were between 0.5 and 1.2 m Mean Lower Low Water; in October, fed mainly at sewage oxidation ponds with concentrations of invertebrate prey (Evans and Harris 1994).

Reproduction Comments

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.

Length

Weight

316

Conservation Status

NatureServe Global Status Rank

Global Status Last Reviewed

1996-11-25

Global Status Last Changed

1996-11-25

Other Status

LC - Least concern

Distribution

Conservation Status Map

Global Range

H - >2,500,000 square km (greater than 1,000,000 square miles) - H - BREEDING: Northwest Territories (Kuyt and Johns 1992), southeastern British Columbia, central Alberta, southern Saskatchewan, southwestern Manitoba, southwestern Ontario, and Minnesota south locally to southern California, central Nevada, northern Utah, south-central Colorado, southern New Mexico, and San Luis Potosi, east to central Kansas and coastal Texas. Nonbreeders often in usual winter range in summer. NON-BREEDING: from California and southern Texas south through Mexico, casually to Guatemala, Belize, Honduras, and Costa Rica, locally in southern Florida.

Global Range Code

Global Range Description

>2,500,000 square km (greater than 1,000,000 square miles)

ELEMENT_GLOBAL.2.100007