Nombre en español: Playero Errante

Nombre en ingles: Wandering Tattler

Nombre científico: Tringa incana

Familia: Scolopacidae

Foto: Felipe Estela/Francisco Piedrahita

Canto: Paul Marvin

El playero de Alaska (Tringa incana) anteriormente Heteroscelus incanus, es una especie de ave caradriforme de la familia Scolopacidae.

Durante el verano vive en Alaska y el noroeste de Canadá donde anidan zonas rocosas a lo largo de in arroyos de montaña. El resto del año se encuentra en las islas rocosas en el suroeste del Pacífico y en la costa rocosa del Pacífico a partir de California, pasando por Centroamérica, Sudamérica hasta Australia.

Wandering tattler

The wandering tattler (Tringa incana) (formerly Heteroscelus incanus: Pereira & Baker, 2005; Banks et al., 2006), is a medium-sized wading bird. It is similar in appearance to the closely related gray-tailed tattler, T. brevipes. The tattlers are unique among the species of Tringa for having unpatterned, greyish wings and backs, and a scaly breast pattern extending more or less onto the belly in breeding plumage, in which both also have a rather prominent supercilium.

These birds have stocky bodies with gray upperparts, underwings, face and neck and a white belly. They have short dark yellow legs and a dark gray bill. Adults in breeding plumage are heavily barred underneath.

In summer, they are found in far-eastern Russia, Alaska, portions of the California coast and northwestern Canada. They nest in rocky areas along mountain streams. At other times, they are found on rocky islands in the southwest Pacific and on rocky Pacific coasts from California to South America and as far as Australia.

They feed on aquatic invertebrates such as crustaceans and marine worms. During breeding season, they also eat insects. While wading, they forage actively, making jerky bobbing movements. Feeding behaviors can include repeated returns to the same location over short periods of time. They can be seen flying low over a rocky coastline or along a jetty.

The female lays 4 olive-colored eggs in a shallow depression. Both parents incubate and help feed the young, who are soon able to forage for themselves.

The call is a rapid trill of accelerating, descending notes of decreasing volume.

The Wandering Tattler is a small shorebird that is fond of the rocky intertidal zone. Breeding in isolated areas of western Canada, Alaska, and eastern Russia, it winters in low densities along coastlines in the northern Pacific; in the Neotropics, the species can be found in winter along the Pacific coast of North America south to Mexico, which scattered records all the way south to Panama. This bird is gray above and gray-barred white below with white spectacles, a medium-length, straight bill, and yellow legs. The Wandering Tattler can often be found feeding on aquatic invertebrates in the precarious coastal spray zone in the company of Black Turnstones, Surfbirds, and other shorebirds.