The tattlers are the two very similar

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 ...

species A species () is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate sexes or mating types can produce fertile offspring, typically by sexual reproduction. It is the basic unit of Taxonomy (biology), ...

in the shorebird

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 ...

''. They formerly had their own genus, ''Heteroscelus''. The old genus name means "different leg" in

Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...

, referring to the leg scales that differentiate the tattlers from their close relatives, the shanks. The species are: *

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 ...

, ''Tringa brevipes'' (formerly ''Heteroscelus brevipes'') * Wandering tattler, ''Tringa incana'' (formerly ''Heteroscelus incanus'') Tattlers resemble a

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 ...

(''T. totanus'') in shape and size, but not in color. Their upper parts, underwings, face and neck are greyish, and the belly and the weak supercilium are white, with some greyish streaking on the underside in breeding plumage. They have short yellowish legs and a bill with a pale base and dark tip.Hayman ''et al.'' (1986)

Certain identification to species depends on details like the length of the nasal groove and scaling on the tarsus. Birds in breeding plumage can also (with some experience) be identified by the underside pattern: the grey-tailed tattler has fine barring on throat, breast and flanks only, which appear light grey from a distance; the rest of the underside is pure white. The wandering tattler has a coarser barring, still visible from quite far away, all the way from the throat to the undertail coverts. In non-breeding plumage, observers with much experience will note that the wandering tattler is an overall darker bird with very weak supercilia, whereas the grey-tailed tattler is lighter – particularly on the face, due to their stronger supercilia. Their normal calls also differ strongly; the grey-tailed tattler has a disyllabic whistle, whereas the wandering tattler has a rippling trill. But when they flee from the observer or are otherwise startled or excited, both species alike give a variety of longer or shorter alarm calls.Hayman ''et al.'' (1986), VanderWerf (2006) Tattlers are strongly migratory and winter in the tropics and subtropics on muddy and sandy coasts. 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

insect Insects (from Latin ') are Hexapoda, hexapod invertebrates of the class (biology), class Insecta. They are the largest group within the arthropod phylum. Insects have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body (Insect morphology#Head, head, ...

crustacean Crustaceans (from Latin meaning: "those with shells" or "crusted ones") are invertebrate animals that constitute one group of arthropods that are traditionally a part of the subphylum Crustacea (), a large, diverse group of mainly aquatic arthrop ...

s 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 ...

s. Their breeding habitat is stony riverbeds. They nest on the ground, but these waders will perch in trees and sometimes use old nests of other birds.

Footnotes

References

* 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. '' The Auk'' 123 (3): 926–936.
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* Hayman, Peter; Marchant, John & Prater, Tony (1986): ''Shorebirds: an identification guide to the waders of the world''. Houghton Mifflin, Boston. * * VanderWerf, Eric A. (2006): Observations on the birds of Kwajalein Atoll, including six new species records for the Marshall Islands. ''Micronesica'' 38 (2): 221–237
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{{Taxonbar, from=Q41972 Tringa Shorebirds Bird common names Paraphyletic groups