Recurvirostra avocetta
A rare accidental visitor.
The singular and graceful Avocet, once a regular summer visitor in considerable numbers to the fen-lands of the eastern counties of England, is now only a chance visitor to our shores, and is very rarely observed in the south-western parts of the kingdom. When it now appears it is generally in the winter time.
Mr. Tracy states that he received two to stuff that had been killed in the neighbourhood of Pembroke in the winter, but does not give the dates. One of them is, doubtless, the beautiful specimen in the Stackpole collection Mr. Dix speaks of as having been killed near Pembroke. Mr. C. Jefferys has informed us that an Avocet was shot near Tenby about the year 1883. We know of no other occurrences. Two Avocets in Col. Montagu's collection, labelled ''South Wales," may have come from Pembrokeshire, a county with which the Colonel appears to have been well acquainted.