Rain fell all day and black cloud turned our world prematurely darkish as we walked to the disguise at Kilnsea Wetland. The sphere in entrance was a brief lake and appeared virtually devoid of color, but at odds with all this winter dullness had been 150 redshanks feeding in extraordinary trend alongside the shallows.
Redshanks’ dimension and form occupy a midpoint between these of the a lot larger curlew and smaller dunlin. When shut like this, you see how a redshank is elaborately patterned, the again and wings with refined black laddering alongside every feather margin, whereas the throat and chest are intricately barred.
At any vary, nonetheless, all this complexity drains away and their upperparts simply look mud brown. Then the one memorable characteristic, except for the glowing orange (misnamed) legs, is the even brighter, insistent three or 4‑observe fluting name.
That voice is a clue to the species’ default persona, which is one in all near-permanent nervousness. The decision is an instrument of alarm and the fowl an alarmist. In equity to this beautiful neurotic, it’s prey to any one in all a dozen predators from weasels to peregrines. An outdated title was “watcher of the marshes”, and in combined flocks they’re the primary to take offence and depart (typically dragging everybody with them) and final to return. But within the second they land, they pause, pull again the pinnacle like a shotgun set off, and name, prepared for additional panic.
Tonight, nonetheless, they dashed over the rain-soaked turf, probing and delving, veering left or proper, pulling up invertebrates, their very own rhythmic sample of trot and prod aligned to the broader thrum of the rain. Instantly, in all this gloom, I noticed a side of redshanks that is very easy to miss. They’re additionally beautiful predators, their tack-tipped nerve-packed bill-ends alert to the best contact of any subterranean worm.
What was maybe most fantastic was to see all the extraordinary power of so many redshanks, poised between their lifelong roles of prey and predator, at a second balanced twixt day and night time, the electrical hue of their legs inscribing a momentary skein of movement finally gentle.
