The curlew sandpiper (''Calidris ferruginea'') is a small

wader 245px, A flock of Red_knot.html" ;"title="Dunlins and Red knot">Dunlins and Red knots Waders or shorebirds are birds of the order Charadriiformes commonly found wikt:wade#Etymology 1, wading along shorelines and mudflats in order to foraging, ...

that breeds on the

tundra In physical geography, tundra () is a type of biome where tree growth is hindered by frigid temperatures and short growing seasons. The term ''tundra'' comes through Russian (') from the Kildin Sámi word (') meaning "uplands", "treeless mo ...

Arctic The Arctic ( or ) is a polar region located at the northernmost part of Earth. The Arctic consists of the Arctic Ocean, adjacent seas, and parts of Canada ( Yukon, Northwest Territories, Nunavut), Danish Realm ( Greenland), Finland, Iceland ...

Siberia Siberia ( ; rus, Сибирь, r=Sibir', p=sʲɪˈbʲirʲ, a=Ru-Сибирь.ogg) is an extensive geographical region, constituting all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has been a part o ...

. It is strongly migratory, wintering mainly in

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...

, but also in south and southeast

Asia Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an ...

and in Australia and

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 List of islands of New Zealand, smaller islands. It is the ...

. It is a vagrant to North America.

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 ...

. The genus name is from

Ancient Greek Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic p ...

''kalidris'' or ''skalidris'', a term used by

Aristotle Aristotle (; grc-gre, Ἀριστοτέλης ''Aristotélēs'', ; 384–322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical Greece, Classical period in Ancient Greece. Taught by Plato, he was the founder of the Peripatet ...

for some grey-coloured waterside birds. The specific ''ferruginea'' is from

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power ...

''ferrugo, ferruginis'', "iron rust" referring to its colour in breeding plumage. The curlew sandpiper is treated as

monotypic In biology, a monotypic taxon is a taxonomic group (taxon) that contains only one immediately subordinate taxon. A monotypic species is one that does not include subspecies or smaller, infraspecific taxa. In the case of genera, the term "unispec ...

: no subspecies are recognised. Within the genus ''Calidris'' the curlew sandpiper is most closely related to the

stilt sandpiper The stilt sandpiper (''Calidris himantopus'') is a small shorebird. The scientific name is from Ancient Greek. The genus name ''kalidris'' or ''skalidris'' is a term used by Aristotle for some grey-coloured waterside birds. The specific ''himant ...

(''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" (''"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 k ...

. 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.

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 lemmings (''Lemmus sibiricus''), East Siberian lemmings (''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

forage Forage is a plant material (mainly plant leaves and stems) eaten by grazing livestock. Historically, the term ''forage'' has meant only plants eaten by the animals directly as pasture, crop residue, or immature cereal crops, but it is also us ...

s in soft mud on

marsh A marsh is a wetland that is dominated by herbaceous rather than woody plant species.Keddy, P.A. 2010. Wetland Ecology: Principles and Conservation (2nd edition). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK. 497 p Marshes can often be found a ...

es and the coast, mainly picking up food by sight. It mostly eats

insect Insects (from Latin ') are pancrustacean hexapod invertebrates of the class Insecta. They are the largest group within the arthropod phylum. Insects have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body (head, thorax and abdomen), three pairs ...

s and other small

invertebrate Invertebrates are a paraphyletic group of animals that neither possess nor develop a vertebral column (commonly known as a ''backbone'' or ''spine''), derived from the notochord. This is a grouping including all animals apart from the chordate ...

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 The effects of climate change impact the physical environment, ecosystems and human societies. The environmental effects of climate change are broad and far-reaching. They affect the water cycle, oceans, sea and land ice ( glaciers), sea l ...

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 The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN; officially International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources) is an international organization working in the field of nature conservation and sustainable use of natur ...

(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 The Agreement on the Conservation of African-Eurasian Migratory Waterbirds, or African-Eurasian Waterbird Agreement (AEWA) is an independent international treaty developed under the auspices of the United Nations Environment Programme's Convent ...

(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