The tattlers are the two very similar
bird
Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a strong yet lightweigh ...
species
In biology, a species is the basic unit of classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate s ...
in the
shorebird
245px, A flock of Dunlins and Red knots">Red_knot.html" ;"title="Dunlins and Red knot">Dunlins and Red knots
Waders or shorebirds are birds of the order Charadriiformes commonly found wikt:wade#Etymology 1, wading along shorelines and mudflat ...
genus
Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus com ...
''
Tringa
''Tringa'' is a genus of waders, containing the shanks and tattlers. The genus name ''Tringa'' is the New Latin name given to the green sandpiper by the Italian naturalist Ulisse Aldrovandi in 1599. They are mainly freshwater birds, often with ...
''. They formerly had their own genus, ''Heteroscelus''. The old genus name means "different leg" in
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
, referring to the leg scales that differentiate the tattlers from their close relatives, the shanks.
The species are:
*
Grey-tailed tattler
The grey-tailed tattler (''Tringa brevipes'', formerly ''Heteroscelus brevipes''Banks, Richard C.; Cicero, Carla; Dunn, Jon L.; Kratter, Andrew W.; Rasmussen, Pamela C.; Remsen, J. V. Jr.; Rising, James D. & Stotz, Douglas F. (2006):Forty-seventh ...
, ''Tringa brevipes'' (formerly ''Heteroscelus brevipes'')
*
Wandering tattler
The wandering tattler (''Tringa incana''; formerly ''Heteroscelus incanus'': Pereira & Baker, 2005; Banks ''et al.'', 2006), is a medium-sized wading bird. It is similar in appearance to the closely related gray-tailed tattler, ''T. brevipes''. ...
, ''Tringa incana'' (formerly ''Heteroscelus incanus'')
Tattlers resemble a
common redshank
The common redshank or simply redshank (''Tringa totanus'') is a Eurasian wader in the large family Scolopacidae.
Taxonomy
The common redshank was formally described by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in 1758 in the tenth edition of his ...
(''T. totanus'') in shape and size, but not in color. Their upper parts, underwings, face and neck are greyish, and the belly and the weak
supercilium
The supercilium is a plumage feature found on the heads of some bird species. It is a stripe which runs from the base of the bird's beak above its eye, finishing somewhere towards the rear of the bird's head.Dunn and Alderfer (2006), p. 10 Also ...
are white, with some greyish streaking on the underside in breeding plumage. They have short yellowish legs and a bill with a pale base and dark tip.
[Hayman ''et al.'' (1986)]
![Wandering Tattler](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2f/Wandering_Tattler.jpg)
Certain identification to species depends on details like the length of the nasal groove and scaling on the
tarsus. Birds in breeding plumage can also (with some experience) be identified by the underside pattern: the grey-tailed tattler has fine barring on throat, breast and flanks only, which appear light grey from a distance; the rest of the underside is pure white. The wandering tattler has a coarser barring, still visible from quite far away, all the way from the throat to the undertail coverts. In non-breeding plumage, observers with much experience will note that the wandering tattler is an overall darker bird with very weak supercilia, whereas the grey-tailed tattler is lighter – particularly on the face, due to their stronger supercilia. Their normal calls also differ strongly; the grey-tailed tattler has a disyllabic whistle, whereas the wandering tattler has a rippling trill. But when they flee from the observer or are otherwise startled or excited, both species alike give a variety of longer or shorter alarm calls.
[Hayman ''et al.'' (1986), VanderWerf (2006)]
Tattlers are strongly
migratory and winter in the tropics and subtropics on muddy and sandy coasts. These are not particularly gregarious birds and are seldom seen in large flocks except at roosts. These birds forage on the ground or water, picking up food by sight. They eat
insect
Insects (from Latin ') are pancrustacean hexapod invertebrates of the class Insecta. They are the largest group within the arthropod phylum. Insects have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body ( head, thorax and abdomen), three pairs ...
s,
crustacean
Crustaceans (Crustacea, ) form a large, diverse arthropod taxon which includes such animals as decapods, seed shrimp, branchiopods, fish lice, krill, remipedes, isopods, barnacles, copepods, amphipods and mantis shrimp. The crustacean group ...
s and other
invertebrate
Invertebrates are a paraphyletic group of animals that neither possess nor develop a vertebral column (commonly known as a ''backbone'' or ''spine''), derived from the notochord. This is a grouping including all animals apart from the chordate ...
s.
Their breeding habitat is stony riverbeds. They nest on the ground, but these waders will perch in trees and sometimes use old nests of other
bird
Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a strong yet lightweigh ...
s.
Footnotes
References
* Banks, Richard C.; Cicero, Carla; Dunn, Jon L.; Kratter, Andrew W.; Rasmussen, Pamela C.; Remsen, J.V. Jr.; Rising, James D. & Stotz, Douglas F. (2006): Forty-seventh Supplement to the American Ornithologists' Union Check-list of North American Birds. ''
The Auk
''Ornithology'', formerly ''The Auk'' and ''The Auk: Ornithological Advances'', is a peer-reviewed scientific journal and the official publication of the American Ornithological Society (AOS). It was established in 1884 and is published quarterly. ...
'' 123 (3): 926–936.
PDF fulltext* Hayman, Peter; Marchant, John & Prater, Tony (1986): ''Shorebirds: an identification guide to the waders of the world''. Houghton Mifflin, Boston.
*
* VanderWerf, Eric A. (2006): Observations on the birds of Kwajalein Atoll, including six new species records for the Marshall Islands. ''Micronesica'' 38 (2): 221–237
PDF fulltext
{{Taxonbar, from=Q2312123
Tringa
Shorebirds
Bird common names