All species › Waders, gulls and terns › Sandpipers and snipes › Curlew Sandpiper
Curlew Sandpiper | Calidris ferruginea
Krombekstrandloper | Correlimos zarapitín
The Curlew Sandpiper breeds in northern Siberia and winters in Africa, southern Asia and Australia. In the New World it is a rare vagrant, and in the Caribbean a few dozen records are known, spread over recent decades, most from Guadeloupe, Barbados and Puerto Rico. A sandpiper with a long, curved bill and a white rump is a sighting here that deserves documentation.
Voice
A soft, rippling chirrup, often on take-off; the call separates it from the harsher call of Dunlin.
Recording: Xavier Riera — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · converted to mono · xeno-canto
Identification
18–23 cm, slim and fairly long-legged, with a long black bill that curves down evenly along its length. Black legs. In winter plumage grey above, white below with a pale grey wash across the breast and a clear white supercilium. Juveniles in autumn are brownish-grey and scaly on the back and have a warm buff-tinged breast. In breeding plumage deep rufous from head to belly. In flight a white wing bar and an entirely white rump.
Confusion species
Dunlin Calidris alpina is stockier and shorter-legged, with a bill that droops mainly at the tip, and has a dark central stripe across the rump. Stilt Sandpiper Calidris himantopus has longer, greenish-yellow legs and a white rump but lacks the white wing bar. White-rumped Sandpiper Calidris fuscicollis also has a white rump but is smaller, with a shorter, almost straight bill and long wings extending well beyond the tail.
Habitat
Shallow salt pans, lagoons and mudbanks, also muddy margins of freshwater pools. It feeds by wading, often belly-deep, probing with the long bill; vagrants mix with other sandpipers.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation types of the Caribbean.
Range and movements
Records are known from Guadeloupe, Barbados, Puerto Rico, Martinique, Trinidad, the Dominican Republic, Cuba, Anguilla and the US Virgin Islands. Most islands have no records. Beyond the region it breeds on the tundra of northern Siberia and winters in Africa, southern Asia and Australia; in North America it is a rare visitor to the east coast.
How and when to look
Salt pans and shallow lagoons with many sandpipers in migration, especially on Guadeloupe, Barbados and Puerto Rico. A bird among Stilt and Semipalmated Sandpipers with an evenly curved bill deserves attention; in flight the combination of white rump and white wing bar confirms the identification.
Conservation status
Vulnerable globally, owing to a steep population decline, mainly through loss of tidal flats along the East Asian flyway. In the Caribbean a very rare vagrant with no regular presence.
Scientific name
Calidris ferruginea | (Pontoppidan, 1763)
Pontoppidan described the species in 1763 as Tringa Ferrugineus; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Calidris was introduced in 1804 by Merrem. Calidris goes back to Ancient Greek kalidris or skalidris, a name Aristotle used for an unidentified grey waterside bird. ferruginea is from Latin ferrugo, ferruginis 'iron rust', after the reddish-brown breeding plumage. The specimen the first description was based on came from Denmark.