The Common Redshank — Totanus Calidris (Linnæus)
The Redshank is a common breeding species in suitable localities throughout our islands.
In winter it occurs abundantly round all our coasts and causes much annoyance to shooters from its habit of flying up on the least alarm and warning all the other less wary fowl, with its shrill “tui too too.”
The nest is usually situated on some inland marsh or low-lying grass field intersected with ditches. It is a very slight structure of grass and bents well concealed in a tussock of grass or tuft of rushes. The four eggs are of a pale stone colour, mottled and blotched with rich reddish brown. During the nesting season this bird becomes very noisy, and if the nesting site be approached, especially after the young are hatched, they fly round the intruder or sit on some bank, calling out vigorously all the time. It is a most interesting sight to take a sporting dog to where they have young and watch the way in which time after time these birds will decoy the dog away by fluttering under his very nose until they have led him to what they consider a safe distance, when they will spring in the air and with a cheery note return to their brood. This habit is common to many species and orders of ground-nesting birds, but unless we take a keen hunting dog with us we shall fail to realise what an excellent device it is for safeguarding the young from mammalian vermin. The food and habits of this species call for no special comment, as it does not greatly differ from its congeners.
In winter the adult is greyish brown on the back; secondaries nearly white; rump and under parts white, with a few dark streaks on the neck and breast. Bill black with a red tip; legs red.
In summer the upper parts are yellowish brown barred and spotted with blackish, the under parts white, profusely streaked on the neck and sides of the breast with ash brown, the flanks being barred with the same colour. Length 11 in.; bill 1·8; wing 6·25 in.
The female resembles the male, and the young may be recognised by the feathers of the mantle having buff spots and the legs being yellow.
The white secondaries are very conspicuous in flight.