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 his
Systema Naturae under the binomial name
Scolopax totanus. It is now placed with twelve other species in the genus
Tringa that Linnaeus had introduced in 1758. The genus name
Tringa is the Neo-Latin name 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
totanus is from , the Italian name for this bird.
Six subspecies are recognised:
- T. t. robusta (Schiøler, 1919) – breeds in Iceland and the Faroe Islands; non-breeding around the British Isles and west Europe
- T. t. totanus (Linnaeus, 1758) – breeds in west, north Europe to west Siberia; winters in Africa, India and Indonesia
- T. t. ussuriensis Buturlin, 1934 – breeds in southern Siberia, Mongolia and east Asia; non-breeding in Africa, India and southeast Asia
- T. t. terrignotae Meinertzhagen, R. & Meinertzhagen, A., 1926 – breeds in southern Manchuria and eastern China; non-breeding in east and southeast Asia
- T. t. craggi Hale, 1971 – breeds in northwest China; non-breeding in east and southeast Asia
- T. t. eurhina (Oberholser, 1900) – breeds in Tajikistan, north India and Tibet; non-breeding in India and the Malay Peninsula
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.
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.
A tagged redshank was spotted at Manakudi Bird Sanctuary, Kanniyakumari District of Tamil Nadu, India in the month of April 2021. They have been rarely observed in North America. In the Caribbean, there is one record of a common redshank in Guadeloupe. They have also been observed in South America, primarily in Brazil, with an additional record of the species in Colombia.
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. They lay 3–5 eggs.
Food and feeding: Like most waders, they feed on small invertebrates.
Status: The common redshank is widely distributed and quite plentiful in some regions, and thus not considered a threatened species by the IUCN. It is one of the species to which the Agreement on the Conservation of African-Eurasian Migratory Waterbirds (AEWA) applies.