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Portrait of Avocet

Nature · Birds

Avocet

Resident and summer visitor · 42–46 cm

Recurvirostra avosetta — Recurvirostridae (avocets and stilts)

A striking black-and-white wader with a fine upturned bill that it sweeps side to side through shallow brackish water. It stopped breeding in Britain in the 1840s and returned in 1947, when wartime flooding of the Suffolk coast created the lagoons at Havergate Island and Minsmere. That return made it the emblem of the RSPB, and it is now the symbol of British bird protection.

How to spot them

  • ▸Fine, sharply upcurved black bill, swept scything through shallow water
  • ▸Clean white body with bold black cap and black wing bars; long blue-grey legs
  • ▸Feeds by 'scything' — sweeping the bill sideways through soft mud for shrimps and worms
  • ▸Loud, liquid, fluting 'kluit' alarm call; ferociously aggressive at the nest
  • ▸Coastal lagoons and scrapes with shallow brackish water, chiefly in East Anglia

How to know it

Sweeps a fine upcurved bill scythe-like from side to side through shallow brackish water

Avocet — the feeding action is called scything.

Returned to breed in Suffolk in 1947 after a century's absence, on lagoons created by wartime coastal flooding

Avocet — Havergate Island and Minsmere; the return made it the RSPB's emblem.

Black-and-white wader whose silhouette became the badge of Britain's largest wildlife charity

Avocet — the RSPB logo since 1955.

Its genus name means 'bent-back bill', for the upward curve that no other British wader has

Avocet — Recurvirostra avosetta.

Over 2,000 pairs now breed in Britain, up from none before 1947

Avocet — about 1,950 pairs at the BTO's 2013–17 estimate, and above 2,000 since 2016.

Dialect names include 'cobbler's awl bird' and 'scooper', both for the shape and use of the bill

Avocet — the awl is a shoemaker's curved needle.

Quick-fire facts

  • •Scientific name Recurvirostra avosetta: recurvirostra means 'bent-back bill'
  • •It ceased breeding in Britain in the 1840s, drained out of the East Anglian marshes, and returned in 1947 at Havergate Island and Minsmere in Suffolk
  • •Those 1947 lagoons were created by wartime flooding of coastal grazing marsh as an anti-invasion measure
  • •It has been the RSPB's emblem since 1955 and is the symbol of the British bird protection movement
  • •BTO BirdFacts gives about 1,950 breeding pairs (2013–17 estimate); the population has stayed above 2,000 pairs since 2016 and the Rare Breeding Birds Panel's recent estimate is higher still
  • •Amber-listed in Birds of Conservation Concern 5 (2021) and on Schedule 1 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981
  • •It is the only British wader with an upcurved bill; the black-tailed godwit's is straight and the curlew's curves down
  • •Old names include 'cobbler's awl bird', 'scooper' and 'yelper', the last for its ringing kluit alarm
  • •Many now winter in Britain on estuaries such as the Exe, the Alde and Poole Harbour rather than migrating south

Drill it — 8 cards

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Sources