Grey-tailed Tattler

The grey-tailed tattler is an elegant, medium-sized wader about 25 cm long and 110 g in weight. It has grey upperparts, a straight dark bill with a dull yellow base, yellowish legs and a bold white eyebrow extending behind the eye above a dark loral stripe. Breeding adults develop fine grey barring across the breast and flanks, while winter birds are plainer below. Its upslurred two-note whistle helps separate it from the similar, more heavily barred wandering tattler (New Zealand Birds Online).

It breeds in Siberia and migrates south through East Asia to winter from Southeast Asia and New Guinea to Australia and western Pacific islands. Birds usually favour sheltered coastal mudflats and estuaries, though they also use reefs and rock platforms. They probe wet mud and search around stones for polychaete worms, molluscs, crustaceans, insects and occasional fish, sometimes shaking crabs to remove their legs. The breeding clutch normally contains four eggs (New Zealand Birds Online; Greening Australia species account).