

KEDSHANK. 149 



These birds sometimes perch on trees. They can swim 

 well if necessitated to do so. In winter they assemble in 

 flocks, often from a dozen to fifty, and upwards from one 

 hundred and fifty to two hundred, and are then difficult to 

 approach, being always on the look-out and ready to take 

 wing on the slightest alarm. If disturbed while the young 

 are yet unable to fly, they are very vociferous, wheeling 

 about an intruder with a slow quivering flight, and frequently 

 stooping close down, as if to buffet him, whistling shrilly 

 while doing so, with their red legs stretched out behind, or 

 drooping, as if languidly, under them. Indeed at any time, 

 especially if approached unawares, they utter a wild scream 

 of alarm, more or less loud, which, if not intended, is yet 

 taken as a signal by other birds about. 



They feed on grasshoppers, beetles, marine insects, and 

 worms, and in search of these bore with their bills in the 

 mud and sand, jumping up and so pressing them in by the 

 weight of their bodies. They likewise eat portions of weeds 

 and mosses. 



The call-note of the Redshank is only a 'dgse, dgse,' or 

 'liddle, liddle.' 



The nest, of a little coarse grass, is made by the marshy 

 margins of lakes and other uncultivated watery places, on a heap 

 of flags, or in some slight depression, or sheltered by a bush 

 or tuft of herbage, as also, it is said, occasionally on heaths. 



The eggs, deposited early in May, are pale reddish white, 

 tinged with green, and blotted, spotted, and speckled with 

 dark red brown, most at the larger end; some varieties with 

 bluish grey. They are four in number. The young are 

 hatched in from fourteen to sixteen clays, and immediately 

 quit the nest, under the tutelage of the female bird, the 

 male taking no care of them; they are soon fledged, and 

 able to provide for themselves. 



Male; weight, about five ounces, or five and a half; length, 

 nearly eleven inches; bill, in winter brownish black at the 

 point, dark red at the inner part: from its base a dusky 

 streak runs to and over the eye. Iris, dusky brown; over it 

 from the bill is a white streak above the dusky one. Head 

 on the sides, white; in winter greyish white, with narrow 

 brown shafts; on the crown and the neck on the back greyish 

 brown, with olive reflections; in winter greyish brown, with 

 darker shaft streaks; neck in front, white; in spring spotted 

 and streaked with greyish or brownish black, with olive 



