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 Supplement to the American Ornithologists' Union Check-list of North American Birds
''

Auk Auks or alcids are birds of the family Alcidae in the order Charadriiformes. The alcid family includes the Uria, murres, guillemots, Aethia, auklets, puffins, and Brachyramphus, murrelets. The family contains 25 extant or recently extinct speci ...

'' 123(3): 926–936. DOI: 10.1642/0004-8038(2006)123 26:FSTTAO.0.CO;2*Pereira, Sérgio Luiz & Baker, Alan J. (2005): Multiple Gene Evidence for Parallel Evolution and Retention of Ancestral Morphological States in the Shanks (Charadriiformes: Scolopacidae). ''

Condor Condor is the common name for two species of New World vultures, each in a monotypic genus. The name derives from the Quechua language, Quechua ''kuntur''. They are the largest flying land birds in the Western Hemisphere. One species, the And ...

'' 107(3): 514–526. DOI: 10.1650/0010-5422(2005)107 514:MGEFPE.0.CO;2), also known as the Siberian tattler or Polynesian tattler, is a small

shorebird 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

genus Genus (; : genera ) is a taxonomic rank above species and below family (taxonomy), family as used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In bino ...

Tringa ''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 w ...

''. The English name for the tattlers refers to their noisy call. The genus name ''Tringa'' is the

Neo-Latin Neo-LatinSidwell, Keith ''Classical Latin-Medieval Latin-Neo Latin'' in ; others, throughout. (also known as New Latin and Modern Latin) is the style of written Latin used in original literary, scholarly, and scientific works, first in Italy d ...

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''). The ...

by Aldrovandus in 1599 based on

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

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

Aristotle Aristotle (; 384–322 BC) was an Ancient Greek philosophy, Ancient Greek philosopher and polymath. His writings cover a broad range of subjects spanning the natural sciences, philosophy, linguistics, economics, politics, psychology, a ...

. The specific ''brevipes'' is from

Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

''brevis'', "short", and ''pes'', "foot". This tattler breeds in northeast

Siberia Siberia ( ; , ) is an extensive geographical region comprising all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has formed a part of the sovereign territory of Russia and its predecessor states ...

. After breeding, they migrate to an area from southeast

Asia Asia ( , ) is the largest continent in the world by both land area and population. It covers an area of more than 44 million square kilometres, about 30% of Earth's total land area and 8% of Earth's total surface area. The continent, which ...

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

Description

The grey-tailed tattler is closely related to its

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere, Northern and Western Hemisphere, Western hemispheres. North America is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South Ameri ...

n counterpart, the

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'' ...

(''T. incana'') and is difficult to distinguish from that species. Both tattlers are unique among the species of ''Tringa'' for having unpatterned, greyish wings and back, and a scaly breast pattern extending more or less onto the belly in breeding plumage, in which both also have a rather prominent

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 k ...

. These birds resemble

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 hi ...

s in shape and size. The upper parts, underwings, face and neck are grey, and the belly is white. They have short yellowish legs and a bill with a pale base and dark tip. There is a weak supercilium. They are very similar to their American counterpart, and differentiation depends on details like the length of the nasal groove and scaling on the tarsus. The best distinction is the call; grey-tailed has a disyllabic whistle, and wandering a rippling trill.

Behaviour

Its breeding habitat is stony riverbeds in northeast

. It nests on the ground, but these birds will perch in trees. They sometimes use old nests of other

bird Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class (biology), class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the Oviparity, laying of Eggshell, hard-shelled eggs, a high Metabolism, metabolic rate, a fou ...

s as well. Grey-tailed tattlers are strongly migratory and winter on muddy and sandy coasts from southeast

. They are very rare vagrants to western North America and western

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

. 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 insects, crustaceans and other

invertebrate Invertebrates are animals that neither develop nor retain a vertebral column (commonly known as a ''spine'' or ''backbone''), which evolved from the notochord. It is a paraphyletic grouping including all animals excluding the chordata, chordate s ...

Conservation status

Australia

Grey-tailed tattlers are not listed as "threatened" on the Australian

Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 The ''Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999'' (Cth) is an Act of the Parliament of Australia that provides a framework for protection of the Australian environment, including its biodiversity and its natural and cult ...

. The grey-tailed tattler is listed as "threatened" on the Victorian

Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act (1988) The ''Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act 1988'', also known as the ''FFG Act'', is an act of the Victorian Parliament designed to protect species, genetic material and habitats, to prevent extinction and allow maximum genetic diversity within the Au ...

. Under this Act, an ''Action Statement'' for the recovery and future management of this species has not been prepared. On the 2007 advisory list of threatened vertebrate fauna in Victoria, the grey-tailed tattler is listed as

critically endangered An IUCN Red List critically endangered (CR or sometimes CE) species is one that has been categorized by the International Union for Conservation of Nature as facing an extremely high risk of extinction in the wild. As of December 2023, of t ...

References

External links

* {{Taxonbar, from1=Q11848755, from2=Q1272062

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 ...

Shorebirds Birds of North Asia Wintering birds of Southeast Asia Wintering birds of Oceania

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