Pats Pool is often dotted with family parties of these striking waders, some broods totalling four in number. Yet during the Victorian era the gunners at nearby Salthouse regularly filled caps, coat pockets and even stockings with avocet eggs for pancakes and puddings. Avocets nest on sandy or muddy strands. After trying several sites, the female settles on one and enlarges it by lowering her breast on to the ground with tail high in the air and scraping backwards with long blue legs. If the nest is at the water's edge and threatened by rising levels after storms, it can become a quite substantial structure as it is added to during the incubation period.
Nestlings leave the nest within a few hours of hatching.
On occasions long treks are involved. The new family may be led by highly alert parents several hundred yards from the nest site during its first 24 hours wading in the shallows and at times swimming. These journeys often run the gauntlet of attack by other nesting avocets. The young feed themselves from birth normally by pecking. But even young ones with short beaks occasionally 'sweep' for food.