Grey-tailed Tattler
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| Grey-tailed Tattler | ||||||||||||||
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| Heteroscelus brevipes (Vieillot,, 1816) |
The Grey-tailed Tattler, Heteroscelus brevipes is a small wader. It is closely related to its North American counterpart, the Wandering Tattler, Heteroscelus incanus, and is difficult to distinguish from that species.
Their breeding habitat is along stony riverbeds in northeast Siberia. They nest on the ground, but these waders will perch in trees and sometimes use old nests of other birds.
Grey-tailed Tattlers are strongly migratory and winter on muddy and sandy coasts from southeast Asia to Australia. They are very rare vagrants to western North America and western Europe. These are not particularly gregarious birds and are seldom seen in large flocks except at roosts.
These birds resemble Common Redshank 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.
These birds forage on the ground or water, picking up food by sight. They eat insects, crustaceans and other invertebrates.
Reference
- Shorebirds by Hayman, Marchant and Prater ISBN 0-7099-2034-2