Blackneck Stilt

While sailing a model yacht on Prospect Park Lake, Brooklyn, when I was eight years old, a STILT lit on the shore within twenty feet. I tried to catch it with my hands and almost succeeded! Years later I saw some in Florida but they are practically gone from former haunts on the eastern coast. They are still common locally around ponds and meadows in the West, preferring fresh to alkaline pools.

Tyler believes that Stilts remain on their nests when cattle approach and sheer them off by bill thrusts. When rising water threatens their homes, they gather any handy material and force it underneath, the entire colony turning to with a will, and often they outwit the inundation.

An intruder within the nesting area is greeted with extraordinary acrobatics: — "Some hang with beating wings above, others bounce along the ground, raising and lowering their wings continually; others assume every conceivable position both on the ground and in the air. These exhibitions require the moral backing of numbers. Isolated birds usually slip away without any demonstration." (Tyler)