Illustration © David Allen Sibley.
Learn more about these drawings.
Text © Kenn Kaufman, adapted from
Lives of North American Birds
Photo: Johann Schumacher/Vireo
Calidris melanotos
Conservation status | Numbers may have been reduced by market hunting in the late 1800s, but current numbers are probably stable. |
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Family | Sandpipers |
Habitat | In migration, prairie pools, muddy shores, fresh and tidal marshes; in summer, tundra. Migrants favor grassy places rather than open mudflats. Often seen along grassy edges of shores, at edges of tidal marsh, in flooded fields or wet meadows. Sometimes on dry prairie or even plowed fields. On breeding grounds, favors wet grassy areas of tundra. |
Forages by picking up items from surface of ground, also by probing in mud or shallow water.
4. Whitish to olive-buff, blotched with dark brown. Incubation is by female only, 21-23 days. Young: Downy young leave nest soon after hatching. Female tends young, but young feed themselves. Age at first flight about 21 days.
Downy young leave nest soon after hatching. Female tends young, but young feed themselves. Age at first flight about 21 days.
Mostly insects. Diet not well known. On breeding grounds, feeds mostly on insects, especially flies and their larvae, also beetles and others. Also eats amphipods, spiders, some seeds. Diet in migration may include small crabs and other crustaceans, plus other aquatic invertebrates, but insects may still be main food.
In flight display, male puffs out chest sac so that chest looks like a feathered balloon. As the male flies low over a female on the ground, he gives low-pitched throbbing hooting noise; after passing female he circles, alternating flutters and glides, back to his starting point. On ground, male approaches female with tail raised, wings drooping, chest puffed out. One male may mate with several females, and he takes no part in caring for the eggs or young. Nest site is on ground in grassy tundra, often in dry upland site but sometimes near water, usually well hidden in grass. Nest (built by female) is shallow depression with cup-shaped lining of grass and leaves.
Along with many other species, every summer this shorebird heads to the coastal plain of Alaska's Arctic Refuge to breed.
Gone unchecked, the element can lead to sickness, sterility, or even death in breeding shorebirds.
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