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Curlew Sandpiper | Calidris ferruginea
Krombekstrandloper | Correlimos Zarapitín
The Curlew Sandpiper is a slender sandpiper with fairly long black legs and a long, evenly decurved bill. It breeds on the tundra of northern Siberia and is the most numerous wintering wader in southern Africa, both on the coast and at inland pans.
Voice
A soft, rippling chirrip or kirrip, especially in flight; flocks give a continuous twittering.
Recording: Xavier Riera — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · converted to mono · xeno-canto
Identification
18–23 cm. In non-breeding plumage plain grey above, white below with a pale grey wash on the breast and a clear white supercilium. Juveniles have a scaly back with pale fringes and a warm buff wash on the breast. Before departure in March and April adults turn brick-red on head and underparts, often patchily at first. The bill is black, longer than the head and curved along its whole length. In flight a narrow white wingbar and a clean white rump, which at once separates it.
Confusion species
Dunlin Calidris alpina, a vagrant here, is stockier and shorter-legged, with a dark central stripe through the rump and a bill curved mainly at the tip. Red Knot Calidris canutus is larger and stockier, with a short, straight bill and a grey rump. Little Stint Calidris minuta is much smaller with a short, straight bill. Terek Sandpiper Xenus cinereus has an upturned bill and orange-yellow legs.
Habitat
Tidal mudflats, lagoons, estuaries and saltworks on the coast, and inland the muddy margins of pans, dams and sewage ponds. It often wades belly-deep and pecks quickly or probes the mud for worms, small crustaceans and insect larvae. At high tide it roosts in large, dense flocks.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of southern Africa.
Range and movements
Numerous along the whole coast, with the largest concentrations on the west coast: Walvis Bay and Sandwich Harbour in Namibia and Langebaan Lagoon and the Berg River estuary in South Africa. Also common in the estuaries of KwaZulu-Natal and Mozambique. Inland it is scattered across the whole region, especially at pans and dams in Botswana, Zambia, Zimbabwe and on the Highveld. Beyond the region it winters throughout sub-Saharan Africa, in southern Asia and in Australia.
- Resident
- Summer visitor (c. Oct–Mar)
- Winter visitor (c. Apr–Sep)
- Passage (Mar–Apr, Oct–Nov)
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
A high-tide roost on the west coast can hold thousands of Curlew Sandpipers; watch for the white rump as they take off. The species is most easily recognised in March and April, when adults colour up red; search the flocks then for Red Knots and rarer sandpipers.
Conservation status
Vulnerable: the world population has declined rapidly, mainly through the loss of intertidal habitat along the flyway via the Yellow Sea. Numbers wintering in southern Africa have also fallen sharply since the 1980s. Protection of west-coast lagoons, estuaries and saltworks is important.
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.