Breeding adult. Photo: Melissa James/Audubon Photography Awards
Limnodromus griseus
| Conservation status | As with many other shorebird species, large numbers where shot during migration in the 1800s, so probably less numerous than historical levels now. Current populations probably stable, but vulnerable. |
|---|---|
| Family | Sandpipers |
| Habitat | Mudflats, tidal marshes, pond edges. Migrants and wintering birds favor coastal habitats, especially tidal flats on protected estuaries and bays, also lagoons, salt marshes, sometimes sandy beaches. Migrants also stop inland on freshwater ponds with muddy margins. Breeds in far north, mostly in open bogs, marshes, and edges of lakes within coniferous forest zone. |
Typically forages by wading in shallow water (sometimes walking on wet mud), probing deeply in the mud with its bill. Usually deliberate in its feeding, standing in one spot or moving forward slowly.
4, sometimes 3. Olive-buff to brown, marked with brown. Incubation is by both sexes, about 21 days. Young: Downy young leave nest shortly after hatching. Roles of parents in caring for young not well known, but reportedly female departs, leaving male to tend the chicks. Young find all their own food. Their development and age at first flight are not well known.
Downy young leave nest shortly after hatching. Roles of parents in caring for young not well known, but reportedly female departs, leaving male to tend the chicks. Young find all their own food. Their development and age at first flight are not well known.
Small aquatic invertebrates. Diet probably varies with season. Eats many insects and their larvae, especially on breeding grounds. In migration and winter also eats mollusks, marine worms, crustaceans. At times, may feed heavily on seeds of grasses, bulrushes, pondweeds, other plants. In spring, also feeds on eggs of horseshoe crab.
Much of nesting area is far inland, generally south and east of the breeding range of Long-billed Dowitcher. Nest site is on ground in bog, forest clearing, or edge of tundra, often near water. Nest is a shallow depression in moss or in a clump of grass, lined with small twigs, leaves, fine grasses.
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