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Curlew Sandpiper (Calidris ferruginea)



Bird in breeding plumage photographed next to the walk way to Geelbek hide in the West Coast National Park

Other names:
Afrikaans: Krombekstrandloper
German: Sichelstrandläufer
French: Bécasseau cocorli
Dutch: Krombekstrandloper

The Curlew Sandpiper, Calidris ferruginea is a small wader.

This species breeding habitat is tundra in arctic north Siberia. The male performs an aerial display during courtship. They nest on the ground in the tundra, laying 3-4 eggs.
Curlew Sandpiper is strongly migratory, wintering mainly in Africa, but also in south and southeast Asia and Australasia.

These birds forage in soft mud on marshes and the coast, mainly picking up food by sight. They mostly eat insects and other small invertebrates.
These birds are small waders, with a down curved bill and a white rump. The breeding adult has patterned dark grey upperparts and brick-red underparts.

In winter (our summer when they are in South Africa), this bird is pale grey above and white below, and shows an obvious white supercilium. Juveniles have grey and brown backs, white belly and a peach-coloured breast.

The Curlew Sandpiper is one of the species to which the Agreement on the Conservation of African-Eurasian Migratory Waterbirds (AEWA) applies.

I would appreciate some help with waders I photographed in the south of Mozambique (March 2008). I find it very difficult to ID these types of birds….they all look the same to me.
The photos are unfortunately not good quality….taken from afar in very bright light…it is also not always possible to check the colour of the bills and legs because it is covered in mud.

4. I don’t know if these are all the same specie…the one on the right seems to have markings going down right onto its belly, while the one on the left seems to only have it on its breast?
I think the one on the left is a Common Greenshank?

Larger View

4. Downward curved bill. I would go with Curlew Sandpiper.

The waders in No. 4 are Curlew Sandpipers. Downcurved bill and general giss normally only confused in non-breeding plumage with Dunlin, which I think is rare in Southern Africa.

4. Curlew Sandpiper (strongly decurved bill longer than head(NB), in fact the bird on the right has started going into plumage, plain back, dunlin has a straighter bill with a droopy tip and an even plainer back in non-breeding plumage, other confusing bird is Red Knot but the knot is dumpier with a shorter neck and the bill length=head length)

While dipping on a twitch for the Leeupan lesser black-backed gull I noticed that the Curlew sandpipers are early arrivals this year.


Large view

They were feeding in the shallows, often submerging their heads up to the shoulder for surprisingly long periods of up to 20 seconds!