The common redshank or simply redshank (''Tringa totanus'') is a Eurasian

wader 245px, A flock of 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 mudflats in order to foraging, ...

in the large

family Family (from la, familia) is a group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or affinity (by marriage or other relationship). The purpose of the family is to maintain the well-being of its members and of society. Idea ...

Scolopacidae.

Taxonomy

The common redshank was formally described by the Swedish naturalist

Carl Linnaeus Carl Linnaeus (; 23 May 1707 – 10 January 1778), also known after his ennoblement in 1761 as Carl von Linné Blunt (2004), p. 171. (), was a Swedish botanist, zoologist, taxonomist, and physician who formalised binomial nomenclature, ...

in 1758 in the tenth edition of his ''

Systema Naturae ' (originally in Latin written ' with the ligature æ) is one of the major works of the Swedish botanist, zoologist and physician Carl Linnaeus (1707–1778) and introduced the Linnaean taxonomy. Although the system, now known as binomial nom ...

'' under the binomial name ''Scolopax totanus''. It is now placed with twelve other species in the

genus Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below family. In binomial n ...

'' Tringa'' that Linnaeus had introduced in 1758. The genus name ''Tringa'' is the

New Latin New Latin (also called Neo-Latin or Modern Latin) is the revival of Literary Latin used in original, scholarly, and scientific works since about 1500. Modern scholarly and technical nomenclature, such as in zoological and botanical taxonomy ...

name given to the

green sandpiper The green sandpiper (''Tringa ochropus'') is a small wader (shorebird) of the Old World. The green sandpiper represents an ancient lineage of the genus '' Tringa''; its only close living relative is the solitary sandpiper (''T. solitaria''). Th ...

by the Italian naturalist

Ulisse Aldrovandi Ulisse Aldrovandi (11 September 1522 – 4 May 1605) was an Italian naturalist, the moving force behind Bologna's botanical garden, one of the first in Europe. Carl Linnaeus and the comte de Buffon reckoned him the father of natural history s ...

in 1603 based on

Ancient Greek Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic p ...

''trungas'', a thrush-sized, white-rumped, tail-bobbing wading bird mentioned by

Aristotle Aristotle (; grc-gre, Ἀριστοτέλης ''Aristotélēs'', ; 384–322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical Greece, Classical period in Ancient Greece. Taught by Plato, he was the founder of the Peripatet ...

. The specific ''totanus'' is from , the Italian name for this bird. Six subspecies are recognised: * ''T. t. robusta'' ( Schiøler, 1919) – breeds in

Iceland Iceland ( is, Ísland; ) is a Nordic island country in the North Atlantic Ocean and in the Arctic Ocean. Iceland is the most sparsely populated country in Europe. Iceland's capital and largest city is Reykjavík, which (along with its ...

and the

Faroe Islands The Faroe Islands ( ), or simply the Faroes ( fo, Føroyar ; da, Færøerne ), are a North Atlantic archipelago, island group and an autonomous territory of the Danish Realm, Kingdom of Denmark. They are located north-northwest of Scotlan ...

; non-breeding around the British Isles and west Europe * ''T. t. totanus'' (Linnaeus, 1758) – breeds in west, north Europe to west Siberia; winters in Africa, India and Indonesia * ''T. t. ussuriensis'' Buturlin, 1934 – breeds in southern Siberia, Mongolia and east Asia; non-breeding in Africa, India and southeast Asia * ''T. t. terrignotae'' Meinertzhagen, R. & Meinertzhagen, A., 1926 – breeds in southern Manchuria and eastern China; non-breeding in east and southeast Asia * ''T. t. craggi'' Hale, 1971 – breeds in northwest China; non-breeding in east and southeast Asia * ''T. t. eurhina'' ( Oberholser, 1900) – breeds in

Tajikistan Tajikistan (, ; tg, Тоҷикистон, Tojikiston; russian: Таджикистан, Tadzhikistan), officially the Republic of Tajikistan ( tg, Ҷумҳурии Тоҷикистон, Jumhurii Tojikiston), is a landlocked country in Centr ...

, north India and Tibet; non-breeding in India and the Malay Peninsula

Description

Common redshanks in breeding

plumage Plumage ( "feather") is a layer of feathers that covers a bird and the pattern, colour, and arrangement of those feathers. The pattern and colours of plumage differ between species and subspecies and may vary with age classes. Within species, ...

are a marbled brown color, slightly lighter below. In winter plumage they become somewhat lighter-toned and less patterned, being rather plain greyish-brown above and whitish below. They have red legs and a black-tipped red bill, and show white up the back and on the wings in flight. The spotted redshank (''T. erythropus''), which breeds in the Arctic, has a longer bill and legs; it is almost entirely black in breeding plumage and very pale in winter. It is not a particularly close relative of the common redshank, but rather belongs to a high-

latitude In geography, latitude is a coordinate that specifies the north– south position of a point on the surface of the Earth or another celestial body. Latitude is given as an angle that ranges from –90° at the south pole to 90° at the north po ...

lineage of largish shanks. ''T. totanus'' on the other hand is closely related to the marsh sandpiper (''T. stagnatilis''), and closer still to the small wood sandpiper (''T. glareola''). The ancestors of the latter and the common redshank seem to have diverged around the

Miocene The Miocene ( ) is the first geological epoch of the Neogene Period and extends from about (Ma). The Miocene was named by Scottish geologist Charles Lyell; the name comes from the Greek words (', "less") and (', "new") and means "less recent" ...

Pliocene The Pliocene ( ; also Pleiocene) is the epoch in the geologic time scale that extends from 5.333 million to 2.58million years ago. These three subarctic- to

temperate In geography, the temperate climates of Earth occur in the middle latitudes (23.5° to 66.5° N/S of Equator), which span between the tropics and the polar regions of Earth. These zones generally have wider temperature ranges throughout t ...

-region

species In biology, a species is the basic unit of Taxonomy (biology), 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 ...

form a group of smallish shanks with have red or yellowish legs, and in breeding plumage are generally a subdued light brown above with some darker mottling, and have somewhat diffuse small brownish spots on the breast and neck.

Distribution and habitat

The common redshank is a widespread breeding bird across temperate Eurasia. It is a migratory species, wintering on coasts around the Mediterranean, on the Atlantic coast of Europe from Ireland and Great Britain southwards, and in South Asia. They are uncommon

vagrants Vagrancy is the condition of homelessness without regular employment or income. Vagrants (also known as bums, vagabonds, rogues, tramps or drifters) usually live in poverty and support themselves by begging, scavenging, petty theft, tem ...

outside these areas; on

Palau Palau,, officially the Republic of Palau and historically ''Belau'', ''Palaos'' or ''Pelew'', is an island country and microstate in the western Pacific. The nation has approximately 340 islands and connects the western chain of the Ca ...

Micronesia Micronesia (, ) is a subregion of Oceania, consisting of about 2,000 small islands in the western Pacific Ocean. It has a close shared cultural history with three other island regions: the Philippines to the west, Polynesia to the east, and ...

for example, the species was recorded in the mid-1970s and in 2000. A tagged redshank was spotted at Manakudi Bird Sanctuary, Kanniyakumari District of

Tamil Nadu Tamil Nadu (; , TN) is a state in southern India. It is the tenth largest Indian state by area and the sixth largest by population. Its capital and largest city is Chennai. Tamil Nadu is the home of the Tamil people, whose Tamil languag ...

India India, officially the Republic of India ( Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the ...

in the month of April 2021. Tringa totanus MWNH 0210

Behaviour and ecology

They are wary and noisy birds which will alert everything else with their loud piping call.

Breeding

Redshanks will nest in any wetland, from damp meadows to saltmarsh, often at high densities. They lay 3–5 eggs.

Food and feeding

Like most

s, they feed on small

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 ...

Status

The common redshank is widely distributed and quite plentiful in some regions, and thus not considered a threatened species by the IUCN. It is one of the species to which the

Agreement on the Conservation of African-Eurasian Migratory Waterbirds The Agreement on the Conservation of African-Eurasian Migratory Waterbirds, or African-Eurasian Waterbird Agreement (AEWA) is an independent international treaty developed under the auspices of the United Nations Environment Programme's Convent ...

(AEWA) applies.

Gallery

Tringa totanus-pjt.jpg, Bird (non-breeding) in flight ( Venetian Lagoon, Italy) Common Redshank (3).jpg, Common redshank in the Hailuoto Island, Finland Vadare-Gluttsnäppa & Rödbena - Ystad-2020.jpg, Common redshank is significantly smaller than, for example the Common greenshank Redshank.webm, Redshank searching for food

References

External links

*
Redshank Images and documentation

Ageing and sexing (PDF; 1.4 MB) by Javier Blasco-Zumeta & Gerd-Michael Heinze
* * * * * * * {{Authority control Tringa Shorebirds Birds of Eurasia Birds described in 1758 Taxa named by Carl Linnaeus