Stilt

They look a bit like a miniature stork: yard-long red legs, a long beak, and black and white plumage make the stilt walker stand out.

Characteristics

What does a stilt walker look like?

Black-winged stilts belong to the saber-crab family and to the order of waders and seagulls. They are unmistakable: Hardly any other bird has such long red legs in comparison to its body size. Stilts are about 33 to 36 centimeters tall, the body itself is only about the size of a pigeon. The legs make up around 60 percent of the body size.

The plumage is white on the belly side, the back and the top of the head are black. The thin, long beak is also black. The black feathers of the females are more brownish. Older animals have fewer and fewer black feathers on the head and the feathers on the chest turn slightly pink.

Young stilt-walkers initially have a rather brownish back and yellow-red legs. Only gradually do the feathers turn black and the legs bright red.

Where does the stilt walker live?

Black-winged stilts live predominantly in the tropics and subtropics around the world. They occur in southern Europe as well as in Asia, Africa, South, and North America as well as in Australia and New Zealand.

Stilt walkers have always immigrated to Central Europe. They do this primarily in years when their habitats around the Mediterranean are too dry. Because of this and because it is getting warmer and warmer here due to climate change, you can also see them more and more frequently in Germany.

In winter, however, the animals, which live relatively far north, move back to warmer areas – mostly to the tropics. Black-winged stilts need water: they are therefore found in areas with swamps, shallow lakes, and ponds, as well as in lagoons and salt flats. They are rarely seen directly on sea coasts. In the Mediterranean area, for example in Spain and Egypt, they like to stay in flooded paddy fields.

What species of stilt are there?

Stilts differ in coloration in different regions of the world. Some have a blackhead, while others have almost entirely whiteheads. Researchers are still arguing about whether these are different subspecies or different species.

How old do stilt walkers get?

How old stilt walkers get in nature is not exactly known. In the zoo, the birds can live up to ten years.

Behave

How do stilt walkers live?

Black-winged stilts are typical wading birds: they use their long legs to walk through the shallow waters of lagoons, ponds, ponds, and flooded fields in search of food. Thanks to their extremely long legs, they can wade in much deeper water than other shorebirds, such as the avocet or the oystercatcher.

Black-winged stilts wade into the water up to their belly plumage. The thin, pointed beak is the perfect tool for searching for food: the birds use it to poke around in the water and ground for food like tweezers. Black-winged stilts are also very easy to recognize in flight because they have a very typical flight pattern: they fly relatively slowly and flap. In-flight, they pull their necks in slightly, hold their beaks slightly downwards and stretch their long legs backward.

Friends and foes of the stilt walker

Small predators and birds of prey pose a particular threat to stilt chicks.

How do stilts reproduce?

Black-winged stilts usually breed in colonies. Males and females team up for one breeding season. Depending on the region, the breeding season begins mid-April to mid-June. They look for small islands in the marshland or a dry place at the water’s edge as a place for their nest.

The nest is made of branches and stalks up to six centimeters high. The parents make the recess for the eggs with fine, soft material. The females usually lay four eggs. They are about 44 millimeters long, olive-green to gray, and bear small, reddish-brown spots.

The eggs always lie with the pointed end towards the center of the nest – so they cannot roll out of the nest. The young hatch after 26 to 26 days of incubation. They wear beige dunes. They have black spots arranged in rows on their heads and shoulders. The little stilt fledges at four weeks.

Black-winged stilts are vigilant parents: if enemies of the breeding colony approach, several parent birds will fly towards them, circle them and call out “kit kit”. Sometimes these calls sound almost like a dog barking. The birds then land a short distance from the colony and continue to call to distract the intruders.

Care

What do stilts eat?

Stilt walkers have a very varied diet: All small animals living in water, such as tadpoles, swimming beetles, and other water insects, their larvae and small fish serve them as food. Thanks to their long legs, black-winged stilts can forage in deeper water.