Ruff

How to recognize it

• Medium-sized wader with a small head, long neck, and fairly solid body.

• In spring, the male is unmistakable, with a full neck ruff and long head plumes.

• Females and birds outside breeding plumage are grey-brown above and pale below.

• In flight, look for a narrow pale wing bar and white patches at the base of the tail.

• Flight is marked by slow, deep wingbeats.

About the species

Did you know?

• Named after a fashionable collar

  The English name Ruff was first recorded in 1634. It comes from the ruff — the large pleated collar fashionable in Europe from the mid-16th to the mid-17th century. The male’s ornamental neck feathers closely resemble this piece of clothing.

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• The female has her own name

  The female Ruff has a separate English name of her own — reeve. Its origin is uncertain. The word may be related to shire-reeve, an old English official title, while the male’s elaborate plumage was compared with formal robes.

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• Every male has his own breeding look

  Each male has his own breeding look: the ruff and head plumes may be black, chestnut, or white, and can be plain, barred, or irregularly patterned. This extreme variation is thought to help males recognize one another at communal leks. That may be especially useful in a species that displays in groups but is usually very quiet.

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• Striped plumage before the breeding finery

  Between winter and summer plumage, Ruffs pass through an extra moult stage with striped feathers. Males later replace these with their elaborate breeding plumage, while females keep the striped feathers through the summer. This striped stage may represent the species’ original breeding appearance, with the male’s showier ornaments evolving later under sexual selection.

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• Some arenas have been used for over 100 years

  Some display arenas may be over 100 years old Male Ruffs gather at traditional display sites known as arenas. These may be on dry mounds, dykes, or flat marshy ground near water. Some of these sites may have been used for display for more than 100 years.

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• Two types of males at the same lek

  At the display arena, males come in two main types. “Independent” males, usually with darker ruffs, defend tiny territories known as “residences”. They threaten rivals and may fight outright. “Satellite” males, usually with white ruffs, hold no territory and rarely fight.

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• Same Mediterranean stops every spring

  During spring migration across the central Mediterranean, Ruffs appear to follow stable routes. Each year they stop at the same places to refuel, and ringed or marked individuals return to those sites in later years. The stopovers are closer together than the birds would need based on their flight range, suggesting that they deliberately favour familiar places to rest and feed.

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• The Ruff as Paul I in Davydov’s fable

  In Denis Davydov’s 1804 fable “The Eagle, the Ruff and the Black Grouse,” the birds stand for Russian rulers: the Eagle for Catherine II, the Ruff for Paul I, and the Black Grouse for Alexander I. Викитека The fable alludes to Paul I’s murder at the Mikhailovsky Castle in 1801 and, in the traditional commentary on the poem, to Alexander’s tacit acquiescence in the conspiracy.

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• Ruff Islands of St Petersburg

  Until the 1930s, the lower reaches of the Yekateringofka were home to the marshy Turukhtannye Islands. Today, they are remembered in the street name Road to the Turukhtannye Islands. One explanation is that the islands were named after Ruffs, which were found there in the 19th century. Another theory traces the name through a much longer chain: a starch manufactory was described as krakhmalnaya, “starch-making”; in local speech this shifted toward trukhmannaya, then to Trukhtanny Island, and later the name was reshaped by association with turukhtan, the Russian name for the Ruff.

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• 2,400 Ruffs for an archbishop’s feast

  In the Middle Ages, Ruffs were caught in large numbers for food. In England in 1465, 2,400 birds were served at the feast celebrating George Neville’s appointment as Archbishop of York. They were netted directly at their leks and were sometimes fattened on bread, milk, and seeds before slaughter.

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• Brawler, cockerel, kurukhtan

  In the Russian Empire, the Ruff had many local names. In Astrakhan Governorate it was called drachun (“brawler”), in Perm Governorate and parts of the Volga region petushok (“cockerel”), and in Siberia morskoy petushok (“sea cockerel”). These names were recorded by Mikhail Menzbier, one of the founders of Russian ornithology and the author of major works on the birds of Russia. The linguist Leonid Bulakhovsky, a specialist in the history of Slavic languages, suggested that older forms such as kurukhtan and kurakhtan may have been the original names, probably borrowed from eastern languages and linked to the meaning “a bird resembling a hen”.

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Where to find

• Ruffs favour open wet habitats such as shallow water, muddy shorelines, wet meadows, and marshes.

• They often feed along the water’s edge and beside reeds, moving briskly and picking small invertebrates from the surface and mud.

• In spring, displaying males can be seen on suitable wet grassland, flaring their ruffs, hopping, and crouching in front of rivals.

• During migration, Ruffs often gather in groups on flooded ground, temporary pools, and shallow wetlands.