Wandering tattler

Last updated

Wandering tattler
Wandering Tattler.jpg
Scientific classification OOjs UI icon edit-ltr.svg
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Aves
Order: Charadriiformes
Family: Scolopacidae
Genus: Tringa
Species:
T. incana
Binomial name
Tringa incana
(Gmelin, JF, 1789)
Tringa incana map.svg
  Breeding
  Migration
  Nonbreeding
Synonyms

Heteractitis incanus
Heteroscelus incanus

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. The tattlers are unique among the species of Tringa for having unpatterned, greyish wings and backs, and a scaly breast pattern extending more or less onto the belly in breeding plumage, in which both also have a rather prominent supercilium.

Contents

Taxonomy

The wandering tattler was formally described in 1789 by the German naturalist Johann Friedrich Gmelin in his revised and expanded edition of Carl Linnaeus's Systema Naturae . He placed it in the genus Scolopax and coined the binomial name Scopolax incana. [2] Gmelin based his description on the "ash-coloured snipe" that had been described in 1785 by the English ornithologist John Latham in his book A General Synopsis of Birds. Latham's specimen had been supplied by the naturalist Joseph Banks. [3] It had been collected in 1777 by William Anderson on the island of Mo'orea in the Society Islands during James Cook's third voyage to the Pacific Ocean. [4] The wandering tattler was moved to the genus Heteroscelus which had been introduced by Spencer Fullerton Baird in 1858. [5] and then in 2006 moved to the current genus Tringa based on a molecular phylogenetic study published the previous year. [6] [7] The genus name Tringa is the Neo-Latin word given to the green sandpiper by the Italian naturalist Ulisse Aldrovandi in 1603 based on Ancient Greek trungas, a thrush-sized, white-rumped, tail-bobbing wading bird mentioned by Aristotle. The specific epithet incana is from the Latin incanus meany "light gray" or "hoary". [8] The species is monotypic: no subspecies are recognised. [9]

Wandering tattler on Great Barrier Reef in Queensland, Australia Tringa incana.jpg
Wandering tattler on Great Barrier Reef in Queensland, Australia
Point Cartwright, SE Queensland, Australia

Description

These birds have stocky bodies with gray upperparts, underwings, face and neck and a white belly. They have short dark yellow legs and a dark gray bill. Adults in breeding plumage are heavily barred underneath.

The call is a rapid trill of accelerating, staccato notes. They can consist of 3 or 4 beats, per call.

Distribution and habitat

In summer, the wandering tattler is found in far-eastern Russia, Alaska, portions of the California coast and northwestern Canada. They nest in rocky areas along mountain streams. At other times, they are found on rocky islands in the southwest Pacific and on rocky Pacific coasts from California to South America and as far as Australia.

In the nonbreeding season it is well distributed throughout the Pacific, often seeking coastlines and isolated islands. [10]

Behaviour and ecology

Food and feeding

They feed on aquatic invertebrates such as crustaceans and marine worms. During breeding season, they also eat insects. While wading, they forage actively, making jerky bobbing movements. Feeding behaviors can include repeated returns to the same location over short periods of time. They can be seen flying low over a rocky coastline or along a jetty.

Breeding

The female lays 4 olive-colored eggs in a shallow depression. Both parents incubate and help feed the young, who are soon able to forage for themselves.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Common redshank</span> Species of bird

The common redshank or simply redshank is a Eurasian wader in the large family Scolopacidae.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Green sandpiper</span> Species of bird

The green sandpiper is a small wader (shorebird) of the Old World.

<i>Tringa</i> Genus of birds

Tringa is a genus of waders, containing the shanks and tattlers. The genus name Tringa is the Neo-Latin name given to the green sandpiper by the Italian naturalist Ulisse Aldrovandi in 1599. They are mainly freshwater birds, often with brightly coloured legs as reflected in the English names of six species, as well as the specific names of two of these and the green sandpiper. They are typically associated with northern hemisphere temperate regions for breeding. Some of this group—notably the green sandpiper—nest in trees, using the old nests of other birds, usually thrushes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Willet</span> Species of bird

The willet is a large shorebird in the family Scolopacidae. It is a relatively large and robust sandpiper and is the largest of the species called "shanks" in the genus Tringa. Its closest relative is the lesser yellowlegs, a much smaller bird with a very different appearance apart from the fine, clear, and dense pattern of the neck, which both species show in breeding plumage. It breeds in North America and the West Indies and winters in southern North America, Central America, the West Indies and South America.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Greater yellowlegs</span> Species of bird

The greater yellowlegs is a large shorebird in the family Scolopacidae. It breeds in central Canada and southern Alaska and winters in southern North America, Central America, the West Indies and South America.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lesser yellowlegs</span> Species of medium-sized shorebird

The lesser yellowlegs is a medium-sized shorebird. It breeds in the boreal forest region of North America.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gull-billed tern</span> Species of bird

The gull-billed tern, formerly Sterna nilotica, is a tern in the family Laridae. It is widely distributed and breeds in scattered localities in Europe, Asia, northwest Africa, and the Americas. The Australian gull-billed tern was previously considered a subspecies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Grey-tailed tattler</span> Species of bird

The grey-tailed tattler, also known as the Siberian tattler or Polynesian tattler, is a small shorebird in the genus Tringa. The English name for the tattlers refers to their noisy call. The genus name Tringa is the Neo-Latin name given to the green sandpiper by Aldrovandus in 1599 based on Ancient Greek trungas, a thrush-sized, white-rumped, tail-bobbing wading bird mentioned by Aristotle. The specific brevipes is from Latin brevis, "short", and pes, "foot".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yellow bittern</span> Species of bird

The yellow bittern is a small bittern. It is of Old World origins, breeding in the northern Indian Subcontinent, east to the Russian Far East, Japan and Indonesia. It is mainly resident, but some northern birds migrate short distances. It has been recorded as a vagrant in Alaska and there is a single sighting in Great Britain, from Radipole Lake, Dorset on November 23, 1962 – however, the British Ornithologists' Union has always considered this occurrence to be of uncertain provenance and currently it is not accepted onto the official British List.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Black-faced cuckooshrike</span> Species of bird

The black-faced cuckooshrike is a common omnivorous passerine bird native to Australia and southern New Guinea. It has a protected status in Australia, under the National Parks and Wildlife Act, 1974.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pacific black duck</span> Species of bird

The Pacific black duck is a dabbling duck found in much of Indonesia, New Guinea, Australia, New Zealand, and many islands in the southwestern Pacific, reaching to the Caroline Islands in the north and French Polynesia in the east. It is usually called the grey duck in New Zealand, where it is also known by its Maori name, pārera.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Surfbird</span> Species of bird

The surfbird is a small stocky wader in the family Scolopacidae. It was once considered to be allied to the turnstones, and placed in the monotypic genus Aphriza, but is now placed in the genus Calidris.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bristle-thighed curlew</span> Species of bird

The bristle-thighed curlew is a medium-sized shorebird that breeds in Alaska and winters on tropical Pacific islands.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tahiti sandpiper</span> Extinct species of sandpiper

The Tahiti Sandpiper or Tahitian Sandpiper is an extinct member of the large wader family Scolopacidae that was endemic to Tahiti in French Polynesia until its extinction sometime before 1819.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Whiskered auklet</span> Species of bird

The whiskered auklet is a small seabird of the auk family. It has a more restricted range than other members of its genus, Aethia, living only around the Aleutian Islands and on some islands off Siberia, and breeding on these islands. It is one of the smallest alcids, only the closely related least auklet being smaller. Its name is derived from the long white feathers on its face that are part of its breeding plumage.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tattler (bird)</span> Genus of birds

The tattlers are the two very similar bird species in the shorebird genus Tringa. They formerly had their own genus, Heteroscelus. The old genus name means "different leg" in Greek, referring to the leg scales that differentiate the tattlers from their close relatives, the shanks.

The Phoenix petrel is a medium-sized tropical seabird, measuring up to 35 cm (1.15 ft) long, with a wingspan of 83 cm (2.72 ft). It has a dark brown upperparts plumage, white below and whitish throat. The sexes are similar.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Antarctic tern</span> Species of bird

The Antarctic tern is a seabird in the family Laridae. It ranges throughout the southern oceans and is found on small islands around Antarctica as well as on the shores of the mainland. Its diet consists primarily of small fish and crustaceans. It is very similar in appearance to the closely related Arctic tern, but it is stockier, and it is in its breeding plumage in the southern summer, when the Arctic tern has shed old feathers to get its non-breeding plumage. The Antarctic tern does not migrate like the Arctic tern does, but it can still be found on a very large range. This tern species is actually more closely related to the South American tern.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Christmas sandpiper</span> Extinct species of bird

The Christmas sandpiper or Kiritimati sandpiper was a small shorebird. It became extinct some time in the first half of the 19th century. It was endemic to Christmas Island, since 1919 part of Kiribati. It is known solely from a single contemporaneous illustration, and a description by William Anderson, both made during the third circumnavigation voyage commanded by Captain James Cook, which visited the atoll of Christmas Island between 24 December 1777 and 2 January 1778.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hawaiʻi ʻelepaio</span> Species of bird

The Hawaiʻi ʻelepaio, also Hawaiian ʻelepaio, is a monarch flycatcher found on the Big Island of Hawaii. Until 2010, all three ʻelepaio species, the Kauaʻi ʻelepaio, the Oʻahu ʻelepaio and this species were considered conspecific.

References

  1. BirdLife International (2016). "Tringa incana". IUCN Red List of Threatened Species . 2016: e.T22693305A93395464. doi: 10.2305/IUCN.UK.2016-3.RLTS.T22693305A93395464.en . Retrieved 13 November 2021.
  2. Gmelin, Johann Friedrich (1789). Systema naturae per regna tria naturae : secundum classes, ordines, genera, species, cum characteribus, differentiis, synonymis, locis (in Latin). Vol. 1, Part 1 (13th ed.). Lipsiae [Leipzig]: Georg. Emanuel. Beer. p. 658.
  3. Latham, John (1785). A General Synopsis of Birds. Vol. 3, Part 1. London: Printed for Leigh and Sotheby. p. 154-155, No. 29.
  4. Stresemann, Erwin (1950). "Birds collected during Capt. James Cook's last expedition (1776-1780)" (PDF). Auk. 67 (1): 66-88 [76]. JSTOR   4080770.
  5. Peters, James Lee, ed. (1934). Check-List of Birds of the World. Vol. 2. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. p. 270.
  6. Banks, R.C.; Cicero, C.; Dunn, J.L.; Kratter, A.W.; Rasmussen, P.C.; Remsen, J.V.; Rising, J.D.; Stotz, D.F. (2006). "Forty-Seventh Supplement to the American Ornithologists' Union Check-List of North American Birds" (PDF). The Auk. 123 (3): 926–936. doi: 10.1093/auk/123.3.926 .
  7. Pereira, Sérgio Luiz; Baker, Allan J. (2005). "Multiple gene evidence for parallel evolution and retention of ancestral morphological states in the shanks (Charadriiformes: Scolopacidae)". The Condor. 107 (3): 514–526. doi: 10.1093/condor/107.3.514 .
  8. Jobling, James A. (2010). The Helm Dictionary of Scientific Bird Names. London: Christopher Helm. pp.  390, 204. ISBN   978-1-4081-2501-4.
  9. Gill, Frank; Donsker, David; Rasmussen, Pamela, eds. (August 2022). "Sandpipers, snipes, coursers". IOC World Bird List Version 12.2. International Ornithologists' Union. Retrieved 6 November 2022.
  10. "Wandering Tattler". Audubon. 2014-11-13. Retrieved 2022-02-26.