At Garretson Point pond yesterday, I noticed a black-necked stilt that would
flutter its wings to move about in the pond & marsh instead of walking, so I spent some time capturing images of this, since it was behavior I haven't seen before.
But I didn't realize why it did this until I looked at my images today (on a bigger screen than the camera LCD) and saw that this stilt has a broken leg.
Allen, I saw your post on EBB today. Good documentation. This is a much better look at a very nasty break:eek: I suppose that unless an infection gets him/her, things will be ok. I've seen a few shorebirds hopping around on one leg that actually did only have one and doing ok! Let's hope for the best.
Ouch. But wild animals are remarkably resilient. The leg looks like it's attached by some dried skin at this point so I would imagine the leg will fall off and the bird will be fine.
99.99% of shorebirds with "one leg" are just hiding one.