American Avocet

The American avocet has thin gray legs and is sometimes known as "blue shanks." It has black and white plumage on the back, white on the underbelly and a neck and head that are gray in the winter and orange or cinnamon colored in the summer. It has a long thin bill that is upturned at the end. 

American avocet near Alamosa, Colorado.

It is migratory, wintering on the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of the U.S. and Mexico, and breeding as far north as Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba and on the Pacific coast of the U.S. I saw the pictured avocet outside Alamosa, Colorado in August 2014 in a field near the Rio Grande River.