38 : Redshank

Redshank - Tringa totanus

This picture taken in the UK at Essex Wildlife's Fingringhoe Wick just South of Colchester last Summer when I was home for a few days.

I have to say that I have just spotted the french name for this bird which is "Chevalier gambette". Something else the french are better at - bird names.

This is a common wader of the middle lattitudes in Europe - migrating South generally in Winter. It is one of those birds that you just expect to see on any seaside marsh, inlet or patch of mud on a lake that is frequented by waders. At some point in your head head they are downgraded to ordinairy or commonplace which is a shame as they are really rather handsome (click twice). The other thing they become at times is "not a Spotted Redshank" which is a bird that it somehow more exciting on an afternoon's list. That's the general way sometimes with many birds unfortunately when you see too much of them and you are hungry for new ones. It should not be that way but it can become like that. If you list you have to remember to enjoy the birds you know - there is always something new to appreciate about any bird.

I do remember when at 30 I decided that I would start birding properly again and wipe the slate clean of everything I had seen when I was growing up. I used to type up these field reports and for me every bird was a new bird. It was high adrenalin and birds were my new rock and roll. I started the life counter at zero. I used to hang about the Essex marshes a lot as I have family not so far away. One particular favourite is still the walk up the Naze at Walton. Another favourite was the Isle of Sheppey in Kent which I could get to from South London.

One of the first times I walked out along the Naze there was a thick fog. Birds would loom out of the mist and I could only see 20 or 30 yards. In that really close almost claustophobic atmosphere it was the calls that stood out. The plaintive contact calls, the alarm calls and the trills. Redshank calls suit Essex or Kent salt marsh in the fog. There is something quite melancholy about that noise. If you know the black and white film version of Great Expectations then its that type of foggy salt marsh that Magwich escapes on or evades capture across in the mist. The in between world between the sea and the inhabited coastal world. I am sure the soundtrack to that film has Redshanks in the background. If not they make a perfect accompianment to anything moody set next to the sea.

So looming out of the mist as I walked out along the Naze glimpses of Redshanks eventually tied into their calls.

There is one call I love which goes on for perhaps 20 or 30 seconds - they make these calls almost as an announcement that you are all lost - "Taloo taloo taloo taloo taloo". Drifting through the mist that can put the hairs up on the back of your neck.

Redshank - Tringa totanus
Photo - Fingringhoe Wick - August 2010