Greenshank - 1894

Totanus canescens

An autumn visitor.

This fine Sandpiper is not very uncommon. Mr. Tracy says : " It is occasionally taken in the autumn." We have seen a fine specimen at the house of Mr. John Worthington, Glyn-y-mel, Fishguard, that was shot by Sir Hugh Owen, at Goodwick. Our friend, the Rev. Marcus S. C. Rickards, vicar of Twigworth, Gloucester, obtained a Greenshank on Caldy Island, during a recent visit to Tenby. He writes : " Not many days after my arrival, I rowed over to Caldy Island, on the shore of which I started a Greenshank. After disembarking and walking inland, I roused a pair by the margin of a pool. They rose with the accustomed cry, and flew up the hills chasing and toying around each other in a very graceful and interesting manner. This was, to the best of my recollection, about the 25th August."

The Greenshank nests commonly by the sides of lochs in the north of Scotland.

Mathew M.A. 1894, Birds of Pembrokeshire and it's Islands