22 February 2021

Birds on stilts

The birds in the photos below, which I took on Oléron shores, are called échassiers in French, it seems. Their long legs are like stilts, which are échasses in French. I would call these birds "shorebirds"; others might say "wading birds" or even "waders" — though in my dialect "waders" are waterproof "hip boots" that are worn by fishermen or firemen.






I'm really bad at identifying European birds, plants, and mammals because I grew up in North America, where we don't have the same species. It appears that there is a family of wading birds called "stilts" because their legs are so long and spindly. One species lives in western North America. Another lives in South America. I don't think any live on the east coast of North America. I'm not at all sure about the bird species you see in my photos.

9 comments:

  1. Apart from the second last photo, which is a gull of some sort, the others are birds you could see around home as well. The white ones are Little Egrets and the grey ones are Grey Herons.

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    1. What does "around home" mean? I recognized the gull. We see gray herons here all the time. In the U.S., we have blue herons.

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  2. If I'm not mistaken, Egrets and Herons can be seen on the Eastf Coast of the US.

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    1. Yes, egrets and blue herons inhabit the U.S. East Coast.

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  3. I love looking at these birds and thinking how much Cheryl must have enjoyed seeing them in the wild.

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  4. Nice pictures, Ken. I know very little about birds of any kind but I enjoy seeing them. We have herons, egrets, wood storks, sandhill cranes, etc. where I live in Florida.

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  5. Thanks to you and Chris for yesterday’s tip on finding English names for things using French Wikipedia.

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  6. These look a lot like the herons and egrets we see in Maine (although not in the winter), but there are some differences.

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    1. We see gray herons in the little ponds that are scattered around the vineyard, but not egrets.

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