Curlew Sandpiper
Calidris ferruginea

Conservation status | Population trends not well known. May have better nesting success in years with high lemming populations, when predators concentrate on lemmings and leave the sandpipers alone. |
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Family | Sandpipers |
Habitat | Tidal flats, beaches; wet tundra in summer. In migration, found in places where other small sandpipers congregate, including mudflats and beaches along coast, muddy edges of ponds and lakes. Nesting habitat in Alaska is along low ridges and slight rises in wet, grassy tundra. |
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Feeding Behavior
Forages mostly in shallow water, probing in mud with bill, sometimes picking items from surface. When feeding with Dunlins, Curlew Sandpiper often wades in slight deeper water, and tends to eat larger items.
Eggs
Usually 4. Creamy to pale olive, blotched with brown and reddish-brown. Incubation is apparently by female only, roughly 21 days. Young: Downy young leave nest soon after hatching. Young are tended by female, but feed themselves. Development of young and age at first flight not well known.
Young
Downy young leave nest soon after hatching. Young are tended by female, but feed themselves. Development of young and age at first flight not well known.
Diet
Insects, crustaceans, mollusks, worms. Diet in New World not well known. In Old world, eats wide variety of insects (especially flies and beetles), mainly in breeding season; also crustaceans (including amphipods and shrimp), small mollusks, marine worms, a few seeds.
Nesting
Male proclaims territory by calling from raised mound, performing low flight display. Courtship displays are more complex than those of most small sandpipers. Male often pursues female in air; both birds perform ritualized nest-making movements; male runs around female in zigzag pattern, with wings raised, tail spread, white rump patch displayed prominently. After elaborate courtship, male apparently departs, leaving female to care for eggs and young. Nest site is on ground on hummock or low mound on tundra. Nest is shallow depression, lined with bits of moss, lichens, leaves.
Illustration © David Allen Sibley.
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Text © Kenn Kaufman, adapted from
Lives of North American Birds
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Migration
A very long-distance migrant, nesting in high arctic Siberia and wintering to southern coasts of Africa, Australia.
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Learn moreSongs and Calls
A soft dry chirrip.Learn more about this sound collection.