Common redshanks in breeding
plumage 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 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-
Pliocene boundary, about 5–6
million years ago. These three
subarctic- to
temperate-region
species 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.[10]
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 outside these areas; on
Palau in
Micronesia for example, the species was recorded in the mid-1970s and in 2000.[11]
A tagged redshank was spotted at Manakudi Bird Sanctuary,
Kanniyakumari District of
Tamil Nadu,
India in the month of April 2021.[12]
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.[13] They lay 3–5 eggs.
^Buturlin, S.A. (1934). Полный определитель птиц СССР [Polnyi Opredelitel Ptitsy SSSR] [Complete keys to the birds of the USSR] (in Russian). I: 88.
^Oberholser, H.C. (1900).
"Birds from Central Asia". Proceedings of the U.S. National Museum. XXII: 207–208.
^Hale, W.G. (1971). "A revision of the taxonomy of the Redshank Tringa totanus". Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society. 50 (3): 199–268.
doi:
10.1111/j.1096-3642.1971.tb00761.x.
^Wiles, Gary J.; Johnson, Nathan C.; de Cruz, Justine B.; Dutson, Guy; Camacho, Vicente A.; Kepler, Angela Kay; Vice, Daniel S.; Garrett, Kimball L.; Kessler, Curt C.; Pratt, H. Douglas (2004).
"New and Noteworthy Bird Records for Micronesia, 1986–2003". Micronesica. 37 (1): 69–96. Archived from
the original on 5 May 2009.
^Two Tagged migratory birds spotted in salt pans in Manakudy bird reserve, The Hindu, Thiruchirappalli, Tamil Nadu Edition, India, pp4, 12.04.2021. thehindu.com