Bird of the Month - July 2004
Wandering Tattler
Heteroscelus incanus
The saying ‘Nature abhores a vacuum’ holds true throughout the biological realm. If there is room for life, there is generally room for much life, and for specialization. Thus our living world has become one of remarkable and unlikely niches, occupied by those beings tough and talented enough to exploit them. Although they inhabit niches falling short of the extremes manifested by Antarctic dry-valley bacteria or the worms clustered about ‘black smokers’ in the blackness of the deep-sea floor, birds nevertheless amaze with their ability to thrive in rugged environments. Among the more specialized birds we can readily encounter in the Redwood Region is the Wandering Tattler. Its’ curious name isn’t all that inspires wonder among birders and naturalists: it lives out a life distinguished by greatly different summer and ‘off-season’ habitats.
Wandering Tattlers live in places where conditions favor creatures able to endure harsh weather, hidden food resources, and the challenges of the intertidal zone. Humans generally are few and scattered where tattlers are found. This holds true during both their breeding and non-breeding seasons.
From early May into late summer, they nest and raise their young in subarctic wilderness areas of Alaska, Yukon, and extreme northern British Coumbia. There they occupy a streamside niche somewhat similar to that of the Spotted Sandpiper, except that the tattler is often found along gravel bars and cold freshets above timberline, where late-spring snows may persist well into the breeding season and glaciers spawned from nearby peaks loom nearby. According to The Birder’s Handbook (Ehrlich et al. 1988), male and female construct a nest on an elevated site among grass and rocks. Four eggs are laid, which the male incubates for 20-24 days. The young fledge in 17-21 days.
A diet composed largely of flying insects changes dramatically to marine invertebrates such as worms and mollusks upon out-migration to non-breeding season habitat. Leaving the boreal and alpine nesting areas far behind, Wandering Tattlers move southward and to the Pacific coast as early as the beginning of July. Along the northern California coast, adult tattlers become a familiar sight by mid-month. They remain until late September.
Sightings later in the season are unusual, and winter occurrences are exceptional. While not breeding, these shorebirds inhabit a far different world, one they share with Black Oystercatchers, Black Turnstones, and Surfbirds. This is the narrow strip of intertidal habitat characterized by rocky shelves, islets, boulders, and tidepools within constant reach of pounding surf. Here they walk slowly among the stones and seaweeds, inspecting shadows and crannies for small marine animals which they extricate with their slim pointed bills, seemingly taking flight only when an especially large wave forces them to. Adults in molting alternate plumage are soon joined by neatly-feathered juveniles.
This species was somewhat aptly named ‘wandering’, as it occurs southward to Peru. The name ‘tattler’ refers to the incisive, piping calls given by these birds as they fly. The call is given in a quick series of notes, and is frequently the first indication of their presence. Typically, from one to several tattlers may be encountered in suitable habitat, often feeding in loose company with other ‘rockpipers’ but not mixing among them, nor clambering over and among rocks as actively as do those birds. Wandering Tattlers are given to perching alone atop intertidal boulders for long intervals. The concrete ‘dolos’ reinforcing the jetties at Crescent City and Humboldt Bay hold an attraction for tattlers. In flight, this is the only rockpiper with plain gray upperparts, lacking any white in the wings or tail.