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Marsh Sandpiper (Tringa stagnatilis)
By peace | April 10, 2008
Marsh Sandpiper (Tringa stagnatilis)
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Aves
Order: Charadriiformes
Family: Scolopacidae
Genus: Tringa
Species: T. stagnatilis
Marsh SandPiper (Tringa stagnatilis) is one of the most elegant of waders, rather like a miniature Greenshank and easily mistaken for that species when alone. It has a more slender build, however, and the bill is proportionately shorter, straighter and more slender whilst the legs are proportionately longer. It usually occurs singly but in a suitable feeding site several birds may be gathered together. Although showing a preference for freshwater feeding, it will join the other birds on the mudflats. It may be seen along river banks, in flooded fields and the evaporation beds of sewage works. It will wade up to its belly in water, sweeping around with its beak for prey. In the 1930s, it was regarded as a very rare bird but is now fairly common in Singapore.
Marsh Sandpiper (Tringa stagnatilis)
Shorebird Counts of Singapore: Stable numbers during both southward and northward migration. The maximum count was 486 observed in Dec 2001. Counts for Singapore range from 526 and 1294. Birds arrive at the wetland in appreciable numbers only from October. The data collected are consistent with the observations in the Malay Peninsula where Marsh Sandpipers arrive late and depart relatively early with a further peak in the boreal spring (Wells 1999). This surge was noted in early April 2001 but not in 2000. It may however have happened between count dates and was therefore unrecorded.
Tringa is a genus of waders, containing the shanks and tattlers. They are mainly freshwater birds, often with brightly coloured legs as reflected in the English names of six species, as well as the specific names of two of these and the Green Sandpiper. They are typically associated with northern hemisphere temperate regions for breeding. Some of this group - notably the Green Sandpiper - nest in trees, using the old nests of other birds, usually thrushes.
The Willet and the tattlers have recently been found to belong into Tringa; these genus changes were formally adopted by the American Ornithologists’ Union in 2006.
The present genus in the old, more limited sense was even further subdivided into Tringa proper and Totanus, either as subgenera or as full genera. The available DNA sequence data suggests however that neither of these is monophyletic and that the latter simply lumps together a number of more of less closely related apomorphic species. Therefore is seems unwarranted to recognize Totanus even as a subgenus for the time being.
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