Birders,

We may just have B.C.'s first breeding record of BLACK-NECKED STILTS
at Kamloops. I will forward more news if and when I get it!

Wayne C. Weber
Kamloops, BC
contopus at shaw.ca


----- Original Message -----
From: Rick Howie <rick.howie at shaw.ca>
<bcintbird at yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Friday, May 17, 2002 7:26 PM
Subject: Stilt News


May 17 - at least 1 BN Stilt still at T'Kumlups Marshes at Kamloops.

Here is the rest of the story.

The bird I saw was a male, and he was sitting tight on a tussock of
vegetation surrounded by water. Over a period of 30 minutes, he sat
tight to the ground, only stretching his neck out to peer closely at
some teal that were foraging close to his spot. He clearly had no
desire to lift his abdomen off of the ground, but looked ready to dash
at them if they came any closer.
Earlier in the week, George Gardner said that the bird was walking
around the same site and chasing ducks away, and kept going back to
the same spot.

Male stilts incubate eggs during the day and females incubate at
night.

>From the behavior that I saw, I am very suspicious that we have a
nesting pair of stilts, and the incubation urge may be so great as to
dominate the urge to chase as the incubation period progresses.

It will be interesting to see if there is a female present. No one
has established the gender of the 2 birds seen earlier as far as I
know. Perhaps she is foraging over at the other pond on the Indian
reserve, or was just tucked away somewhere else around the larger
perimeter of T'Kumlups Marsh.

If some Kamloops birders want to contact me about establishing a
monitoring program, please do so. The young will run quickly after
hatching, so we could miss this occurrence if there is really a nest
here. The dense vegetation in the area could make them hard to see.

Rick Howie
Kamloops, BC
rick.howie at shaw.ca