General

Curlew Sandpiper: Medium-sized sandpiper with mottled rufous, white, and black upperparts. Head, neck and breast are rich rufous while vent and undertail coverts are white. Bill is long and slightly decurved. Sexes are similar. Winter adult has uniformly gray upperparts, mottled gray breast, and white eye-line, and lacks rufous. Juvenile is similar to winter adult but with orange-brown wash and scaled upperparts.

Range and Habitat

Curlew Sandpiper: Breeds in Eurasia and very rarely in northern Alaska. Rare but regular migrant to the east coast, less common on west coast; spends winters mainly in the Old World. Nests on tundra; in migration stays on estuaries, lagoons, and lakes.

Listen to Call

Voice Text

"chirrup", "chirrip", "wick-wick-wick"

Interesting Facts

 The Curlew Sandpiper, although breeding in northern Asia, seems to stray to many parts of the world outside of its normal haunts.

 The numbers of this species (and of Little Stint) depend on the population of lemmings. In poor lemming years, predatory species such as skuas and Snowy Owls will take Arctic-breeding waders instead.

 This species occasionally hybridizes with the Sharp-tailed Sandpiper and the Pectoral Sandpiper, producing the presumed "species" called "Cooper's Sandpiper" and "Cox's Sandpiper."

 A group of sandpipers has many collective nouns, including a "bind", "contradiction", "fling", "hill", and "time-step" of sandpipers.

Author

Gary Owen Dick