The curlew sandpiper (''Calidris ferruginea'') is a small wader that breeds on the tundra of Arctic Siberia. It is strongly migratory, wintering mainly in Africa, but also in south and southeast Asia and in

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

and New Zealand. It is a

vagrant Vagrancy is the condition of homelessness without regular employment or income. Vagrants (also known as bums, vagabonds, rogues, tramps or drifters) usually live in poverty and support themselves by begging, scavenging, petty theft, temporar ...

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Car ...

Taxonomy

The curlew sandpiper was formally described in 1763 by the Danish author Erik Pontoppidan under the

binomial name In taxonomy, binomial nomenclature ("two-term naming system"), also called nomenclature ("two-name naming system") or binary nomenclature, is a formal system of naming species of living things by giving each a name composed of two parts, bot ...

''Tringa ferrugineus''. It is now placed with 23 other sandpipers in the genus '' Calidris'' that was introduced in 1804 by the German naturalist

Blasius Merrem Blasius Merrem (4 February 1761 – 23 February 1824) was a German naturalist, zoologist, ornithologist, mathematician, and herpetologist. In 1804, he became the professor of political economy and botany at the University of Marburg. Early li ...

. The genus name is from Ancient Greek ''kalidris'' or ''skalidris'', a term used by Aristotle for some grey-coloured waterside birds. The specific ''ferruginea'' is from Latin ''ferrugo, ferruginis'', "iron rust" referring to its colour in breeding plumage. The curlew sandpiper is treated as monotypic: no

subspecies In biological classification, subspecies is a rank below species, used for populations that live in different areas and vary in size, shape, or other physical characteristics (morphology), but that can successfully interbreed. Not all species ...

are recognised. Within the genus ''Calidris'' the curlew sandpiper is most closely related to the stilt sandpiper (''Calidris himantopus''). This species occasionally hybridizes with the sharp-tailed sandpiper and the pectoral sandpiper, producing the presumed "species" called " Cooper's sandpiper" (''"Calidris"'' × ''cooperi'') and "

Cox's sandpiper Cox's sandpiper (''Calidris'' × ''paramelanotos'') is a hybrid between a male pectoral sandpiper (''Calidris melanotos'') and a female curlew sandpiper (''Calidris ferruginea''). First discovered in Australia in the 1950s, it was originally descr ...

" (''"Calidris"'' × ''paramelanotos''), respectively.

Description

These birds are small waders, similar to

dunlin The dunlin (''Calidris alpina'') is a small wader, formerly sometimes separated with the other "stints" in the genus ''Erolia''. The English name is a dialect form of "dunling", first recorded in 1531–1532. It derives from ''dun'', "dull brown ...

s, but differ in having a longer down-curved beak, longer neck and legs and a white rump. They have a length of , weight of 44-117 g and wingspan of . The breeding adult has patterned dark grey upperparts and brick-red underparts. In winter, this bird is pale grey above and white below, and shows an obvious white

supercilium The supercilium is a plumage feature found on the heads of some bird species. It is a stripe which runs from the base of the bird's beak above its eye, finishing somewhere towards the rear of the bird's head.Dunn and Alderfer (2006), p. 10 Also ...

. Juveniles have a grey and brown back, a white belly and a peach-coloured breast.

Distribution and habitat

The curlew sandpiper breeds in the Siberian Arctic from the Yamal Peninsula to the

Kolyuchin Bay Kolyuchin Bay (russian: Колючинская губа; ''Kolyuchinskaya guba'') is a large bay in the Chukchi Sea on the northern shore of the Chukotka Peninsula, Russia. Administratively this bay belongs to the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug of th ...

Behaviour

This wader is highly gregarious, and will form flocks with other calidrid waders, particularly

. Despite its easterly breeding range, this species is regular on passage in western Europe, presumably because of southwesterly migration route.

Breeding

The breeding grounds are occupied from June till late August. The male curlew sandpiper performs an aerial display during courtship. The nesting site is at the edge of a marsh or pool, or on dry patches of tundra. The average clutch size is 3.8 eggs which are laid at daily intervals. The eggs are incubated by the female and hatch after 19–20 days. The chicks are cared for by the female for 14–16 days. The reproductive success of this species appears to be dependent on the population of lemmings (

West Siberian lemming The West Siberian lemming or Western Siberian brown lemming (''Lemmus sibiricus'') is a true lemming species found in the Russian Federation. Like other lemmings, it belongs to the Cricetidae family of rodents. It is endemic to Russia, where ...

s (''Lemmus sibiricus''),

East Siberian lemming The East Siberian lemming, Eastern Siberian brown lemming, or Ognev's lemming (''Lemmus paulus'') is a species of lemming endemic to Russia, where it has a disjunct distribution throughout parts of Siberia east of the Verkhoyansk Range. Taxonom ...

s (''Lemmus paulus'') and the Arctic lemming (''Dicrostonyx torquatus''). In poor lemming years, predatory species such as the Arctic fox (''Alopes lagopus'') will take Arctic-breeding waders instead.

Food and feeding

It forages in soft mud on marshes and the coast, mainly picking up food by sight. It mostly eats insects and other small invertebrates.

Status

Counts of the curlew sandpipe in South Africa, specifically at Langebaan Lagoon where they are most numerous, indicate a 40% decline in numbers between 1975 and 2009. A similar trend has been noted in Australia and may be linked to effects of global warming at the breeding grounds. It has an extremely large range but although the population is large it is very hard to determine and appears to be decreasing,. The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has judged the species to be " Near-threatened". The curlew sandpiper is one of the species to which the Agreement on the Conservation of African-Eurasian Migratory Waterbirds (AEWA) applies.

References

Sources

External links

Curlew sandpiper species text in The Atlas of Southern African Birds

Pictures of curlew sandpiper
a
Birdlife Finland

Ageing and sexing (PDF; 1.4 MB) by Javier Blasco-Zumeta & Gerd-Michael Heinze
* * * * * * * * {{Taxonbar, from=Q62345 curlew sandpiper curlew sandpiper curlew sandpiper Birds of North Asia Near threatened animals Near threatened biota of Asia Near threatened biota of Australia curlew sandpiper Articles containing video clips Taxa named by Erik Pontoppidan