AVOCET
The avocet or pied avocet, as it is sometimes called, is a very elegant bird and its head is used by the RSPB as their logo. Avocets are 420 to 460mm long, with a very fine, black, upturned bill and long blue-grey legs. They are closely related to stilts and are mostly white with a black cap, large, black wingtips and a curved black band on each side of the back. In flight, a diagonal black bar can be seen over the inner wings, on the upper side. The juveniles can look dirty, as they have brown tips to the feathers. Males and females have similar plumage, except the black wingtips are larger on the males.
The avocet's preferred habitat is either, flat open seashores or shallow lagoons with brackish or salt water. Here on Kefalonia, the best place to see them is the Livadi Marsh in the Winter. Their food is mainly insects and small crustaceans, which they obtain by sweeping their slightly open bills from side to side through the water or soft mud, detecting their prey by touch. They also feed by pecking at the surface of mud and occasionally dabbling or upending like a duck. An avocet's nest is a shallow scrape on open ground, with 3 to 5 eggs being laid between April and July.
