WILLIAMSONS WEEKLY NATURE NOTES

The redshank would be the first to see anybody approaching the mudflats. It would give the warning, yelping like a tiny terrier.

Every bird for miles around would stop what they were doing and raise their head to see where the trouble was.

In the days when redshank were legitimate quarry, being called saltings snipe, wildfowlers might curse the redshank for his beady eye. Deep in the rithes (south coast), guts or channers (west coast) drains or grupps (east coast) every other redshank would fly up from their worm feast and check the position of the enemy.

Redshanks are often so wary that they prefer to perch on posts well above the comfort of long grass and sueda bushes growing on the saltings.

I have known them to crowd together on the handrail of a footbridge over the creeks, pretty much like starlings on telegraph wires. In Chichester harbour where 2,000 redshanks spend the winter, many of these roost together on the lips of high banks close to the water's edge.

For full feature see West Sussex Gazette October 3