Black-necked stilts are elegant shorebirds characterized by long rose-pink legs, slender black bills, and contrasting black-and-white plumage; adults measure 14 inches in length, span 49 inches, and weigh 150–176 g. In Arizona, they are primarily autumn and winter visitors, most commonly seen in southern wetlands such as those near Willcox, and they may also appear in central Arizona’s artificial lakes and drainage basins from fall through early spring. These stilts forage by wading in shallow fresh and saltwater habitats—mudflats, marsh edges, evaporation ponds, and flooded fields—probing for aquatic invertebrates such as crustaceans, insect larvae, and mollusks. Although chiefly migratory within the state, black-necked stilts do form small semicolonial breeding groups in riparian corridors along the Colorado River and at Phoenix-area drainage basins between late April and July, nesting on mud islands or levees and vigorously defending their ground nests with loud “kree-ee” calls.
