The Avocet
- Debbie Jordan
- Jul 6
- 3 min read
In July 2026, a record-breaking 36-year-old Avocet, which had originally been ringed as a chick in Norfolk in 1990, was identified at RSPB Middleton Lakes. The Avocet is included within Francis Willughby’s Ornithologia and this post will focus on part of his description.
Willughby commented that he had seen many Avocets at Rome and Venice during the European Tour he went on with John Ray, Philip Skippon and Nathaniel Bacon. He also noted that this species often frequented the eastern coasts of Suffolk and Norfolk in winter.
Willughby knew the Avocet by the Italian name of Avosetta and the Latin name of Recurvirostra. Carl Linnaeus gave it the official binomial name of Recurvirostra avosetta in 1758, which it still has today. The current English common name arose as a result of a spelling mistake by the French naturalist Mathurin Brisson in 1760, who accidentally replaced the s with a c. In 1771, Thomas Pennant was the first to officially use the modern spelling by anglicising Brisson’s French version to give the name Avocet.
In Ornithologia, it was recorded that the Avocet they measured in Italy weighed 10½ ounces (297.6g). In length, from the tip of the bill to the end of the tail, it was 18 inches (45.7cm) and to the end of the toes it was 23½ inches (59.6cm). It had a wingspan of 31 inches (78.7cm).
Its bill was 3½ inches long (8.8cm), black, slender, horizontally flattened, reflected upwards and ended in a very thin and slender weak point. Willughby commented that the figure of the bill, being so reflected upwards, was peculiar to this species and sufficient by itself to characterise and distinguish it from all other birds that he had hitherto seen or heard of.
The upper side of the head and neck was black. However, sometimes the forehead could be grey. It is now known that the grey forehead is indicative of a juvenile. Willughby described that the whole underside of the body was a pure snow-white. The interior scapular feathers were black, which formed a long black spot in the middle of the back. The whole tail was white, 3½ inches long (8.8cm) and made up of 12 feathers.
The wings were partly white and partly black. Willughby precisely described the wing colouring as: the upper covert feathers, from the setting on of the wing to the first joint, were white; from the first to the second joint, the lesser (median) covert feathers were black; from the second joint to the base of the greater flight feathers they were white again; the pinion feather was wholly black and the succeeding feathers by degrees had less and less black, until in the eighth only the exterior tip remained black. This formed a broad black oblique bed across the wing.
The legs were described as very long and of a lovely blue colour that were bare of feathers for almost 3 inches (7.6cm) above the “knees” (ankles). It had webbed feet and a very small back toe. The claws were black and little.
They could not determine what it ate and commented that with its bill being so slender, weak, long and of so inconvenient a figure in turning upwards, “one would wonder how it could gather its food, be it what it will.” It is now known that their diet consists of aquatic insects and their larvae, crustaceans and worms.
As a result of the drainage of wetlands in 19th century Britain, the species nearly became extinct in this country. Its return began in 1947, when four breeding pairs settled on the Suffolk coast. From then, the population has increased so that now there are about 1,950 breeding pairs and 8,700 wintering birds. The resurgence of the Avocet is considered one of the most successful conservation and protection projects. Their habitat has expanded in Britain so that they are all year residents along most of the east coast of England. The Avocet has also been sighted as far west as Wales. Furthermore, instead of being limited to its traditional coastal habitats, it has adapted particularly well to wetlands formed from old areas of gravel extraction, such as at RSPB Middleton Lakes.
Further Reading:
John Ray, Francis Willughby's Ornithologia, 1678, p.321, T60.
“Avocet”, RSPB, https://www.rspb.org.uk/birds-and-wildlife/avocet
Vanessa Pearce, “Britain’s oldest avocet spotted at nature reserve”, BBC News, 4 July 2026, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx23646g98lo
Author - Debbie Jordan, Middleton Hall Volunteer.
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