diff --git a/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/CHANGES.txt b/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/CHANGES.txt
index 905d647c145..451f43b2d00 100644
--- a/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/CHANGES.txt
+++ b/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/CHANGES.txt
@@ -55,6 +55,9 @@ Release 2.4.0 - UNRELEASED
     HADOOP-10314. The ls command help still shows outdated 0.16 format.
     (Rushabh S Shah via kihwal)
 
+    HADOOP-8691. FsShell can print "Found xxx items" unnecessarily often.
+    (Daryn Sharp via wheat9)
+
   OPTIMIZATIONS
 
   BUG FIXES
diff --git a/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/fs/shell/Ls.java b/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/fs/shell/Ls.java
index eecd3b03ad1..dff7719afe0 100644
--- a/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/fs/shell/Ls.java
+++ b/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/fs/shell/Ls.java
@@ -104,7 +104,7 @@ class Ls extends FsCommand {
   @Override
   protected void processPaths(PathData parent, PathData ... items)
   throws IOException {
-    if (!isRecursive() && items.length != 0) {
+    if (parent != null && !isRecursive() && items.length != 0) {
       out.println("Found " + items.length + " items");
     }
     adjustColumnWidths(items);