CURTIS – One of the most unusual shorebirds to observe at Howard Marsh Metropark is the black-necked stilt.
Elegantly slender, attractively black-and-white patterned, and sporting impossibly long and thin pink legs as well as a long, thin straight bill, this fascinating species has found Howard Marsh very much to its liking.
Their arrival came as a welcome surprise, especially since the stilt is a species more inclined to nest along seashores and in marshes much further south. It was particularly welcome since it found Howard to its liking virtually as soon as the former wetland-turned-farmland was restored again as a wetland just a few years ago.
The species has flourished and returns every year since. That nesting put an emphatic gold seal on Howard as a high-quality wetland certain to be even more productive and attractive as a birding hotspot in years to come.
Nesting stilts are very territorial and highly aggressive, traits illustrated in this photograph taken at a Howard sunset. In a dramatic real life example of the classic line, “It’s not the size of the dog in the fight, but the size of the fight in the dog,” a nesting pair of stilts attack a much larger and more powerful passing bald eagle, successfully hurrying it away from their nest territory.
