Green Sandpiper (Tringa ochropus)

Scientific Classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Aves
Order: Charadriiformes
Family: Scolopacidae
Genus: Tringa
Species: T. ochropus

Identification
The Green Sandpiper, Tringa ochropus, is a small wader (shorebird). They have brown wings with little light dots, and a delicate but contrasting neck and chest pattern. In addition, both species nest in trees, unlike most other scolopacids.

This species is a dumpy wader with a dark green back, greyish head and breast and otherwise white underparts. The back is spotted white to varying extents, being maximal in the breeding adult, and less in winter and young birds. The legs and short bill are both dark green.

Green Sandpiper lays 2-4 eggs in an old tree nest of another species, such as a Fieldfare. The eggs take about three weeks to hatch.

Habitat
It breeds across subarctic Europe and Asia. It is a migratory bird, wintering in southern Europe and Asia, and tropical Africa.

This is not a gregarious species, although sometimes small numbers congregate in suitable feeding areas. Green Sandpiper is very much a bird of fresh water, and is often found in sites too restricted for other waders, which tend to like a clear all-round view.

Food is small invertebrate items picked off the mud as this species works steadily around the edges of its chosen pond.

Location
Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve
Singapore
March 2007