Wild Harris

Redshank    (Photo: Cliff Reddick)

With its long red legs, the redshank can often be seen wading in shallow water looking for food. It digs around with its red beak to find cockles and small crabs.

Shank is the old name for leg, so its name is just ‘redleg’.

When it flies you can see a very obvious white ‘W” on the top of its wings.

Redshank    (Photo: Cliff Reddick)

This is a very common pose for the redshank – on one leg on the top of a fencepost. It breeds near small pools, and if you go near the pool it will fly up calling ‘tew,tew’.

Redshank Chick    (Photo: Cliff Reddick)

The young chicks are brown and speckled, and are cared for by both the parent birds for about four weeks until they are old enough to look after themselves.

by Alison Tyler