Habitat
Curlew Sandpipers breed in the high Arctic, in lowland tundra dotted with boggy depressions and pools formed from melted permafrost and snow. This species frequently inhabits tidal mudflats during migration and the nonbreeding season, and also uses salt pans, sandy beaches, rice fields, lake edges, and sewage lagoons outside of the breeding season.
Back to topFood
During the breeding season, Curlew Sandpipers feed on both larval and adult insects, especially flies, beetles, and bugs. On the nonbreeding grounds, they eat worms, molluscs, crustaceans, insects, snails, slugs, and some seeds. Curlew Sandpipers forage on mudflats and in shallow water, picking food items from the mud or water surface and also probing their bill into the mud in search of prey.
Back to topNesting
Nest Placement
Placed on the ground on dry tundra near the edge of marshes, pools, or wetter tundra.
Nest Description
A shallow depression lined with dry leaves and encircled with short plant stems.
Nesting Facts
| Clutch Size: | 4 eggs |
| Number of Broods: | 1 brood |
| Incubation Period: | 20 days |
| Egg Description: | Olive green with large brown splotches. |
Behavior
Curlew Sandpipers are socially monogamous. Most pair formation seems to take place during migration, allowing many birds to start nesting soon after they arrive on their breeding grounds. The male of the pair departs the area after mating and while the female is still laying eggs, leaving all parental care to the female. Chicks are fully covered in down when they hatch and are soon able to leave the nest area. The female leads the young chicks to nearby brood-rearing areas, where they join a few other Curlew Sandpiper families in loose gatherings. The young birds are fully independent in 14 to 20 days, at which time the female departs. During migration and the nonbreeding season, Curlew Sandpiper feeds in large flocks of hundreds or thousands of birds, often mixing with Dunlin and other shorebird species.
Back to topConservation
The International Union for Conservation of Nature estimates Curlew Sandpiper’s global population as 420,000–960,000 breeding individuals and lists its conservation status as Vulnerable as of 2024. Monitoring data suggest that this species has declined by 30–49% between 2010 and 2024. Likely causes of the decline include habitat loss and degradation on stopover and nonbreeding grounds, climate change impacts on breeding productivity, and hunting. In the East Asian-Australasian Flyway, land reclamation projects have eliminated 65% of intertidal stopover habitat in the Yellow Sea since the early 1970s, and this habitat loss is continuing.
Back to topCredits
BirdLife International. 2024. Calidris ferruginea. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2024: e.T22693431A180593985.
Dunne, P. (2006). Pete Dunne's essential field guide companion. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, New York, USA.
Jonsson, L. (1992). Birds of Europe with North Africa and the Middle East. Christopher Helm, London, United Kingdom.
Mlodinow, S. G. and F. Medrano (2023). Curlew Sandpiper (Calidris ferruginea), version 2.0. In Birds of the World (N. D. Sly, Editor). Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY, USA. https://doi.org/10.2173/bow.cursan.02
O'Brien, M., R. Crossley, and K. Karlson (2006). The Shorebird Guide. Houghton Mifflin, New York, New York, USA.
Sibley, D. A. (2014). The Sibley Guide to Birds, second edition. Alfred A. Knopf, New York, NY, USA.
Svensson, L., K. Mullarney, and D. Zetterström (2009). Collins Bird Guide. Second edition. HarperCollins, London, UK.