Black-Necked Stilt (Himantopus mexicanus)

I have seen Black-Necked Stilts on every trip I have made to the Arroyo Simi. These guys were filmed on January 7, 2012 from the service road just west of Madera Road. Stilts are members of the same family as avocets--Recurvirostridae. They generally wade in the shallows picking at the surface and using their long beaks to probe for invertebrates in the mud below. Stilts are social birds and will make a quite a ruckus when an intruder apporaches a nesting site.