Species Name: Avocet - Recurvirostra avosetta
Key Facts:
Large elegant black-and-white wader.
Habitat: shallow brackish or freshwater lagoons near the coast
Summer visitor to East Anglia, breeding at a number of Essex Wildlife Trust sites particularly Two Tree Island where an egg watch is co-ordinated by Essex Wildlife Trust; winters in Suffolk, Essex and SW Britain
Identification:
Strongly patterned black-and-white wader with long blue-grey legs and long black up-turned bill
A filter feeder, often seen feeding head down in shallow water, moving its head from side to side with scything movements
Eats crustaceans and insects; flies with legs trailing
Life Cycle:
Nest is a bare scrape on the ground
1 Brood April – May; 4 buff eggs spotted black
Went extinct as a British breeding bird