My first reaction on seeing a Ruff (especially for males, less so for the much
smaller Reeves) is that it has been assembled from parts of different
shorebirds. Big porky body. Legs are unreasonably short for the body. The
neck stops 20% short of where it might be expected to end, though you can’t
tell because the head is too small anyway. The bill can’t make up its mind:
short or longish? The tertials are borrowed from one of the smaller cranes.
In short, a delightful shorebird.
Alan Contreras
acontrer56@xxxxxxxxx
Eugene, Oregon
www.alanlcontreras.com
