Description
A medium-sized wading bird with longish neck and a down-curved bill. Pale brown and heavily-marked with darker brown. Head with a dark cap and a dark eye-line. Legs blue-grey. Bill dark, with the thicker half of lower bill pinkish. Juveniles similar to adult.
Commonest in northern Australia. Migrates from Siberia, arriving in the wet season and dispersing irregularly within Australia, largely in response to rainfall. Usually occurs in large flocks, and forages by walking slowly over grass, picking and probing with the bill for invertebrates, berries and seeds. Roosts in groups, at night in dry grasslands or by day on the unvegetated banks of water bodies. Breeds in Siberia during the northern hemisphere summer.
Author credit: Lindley McKay
Habitat
Mostly areas of short grass, including floodplains, lawns and fields, and usually close to water. Occasionally found at swamps or the coast, or open woodland.
Food
Omnivore
Range
Northern Australia.
Credits:
Map is from Atlas of Living Australia website at https://biocache.ala.org.au licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.
Species Description is from Museums Field Guide, Atlas of Living Australia at website at https://lists.ala.org.au Licensed under Creative Commons Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.
Classification
| Class: | Aves | | Order: | Charadriiformes | | Family: | Scolopacidae | | Genus: | Numenius | | Species: | minutus | | Common Name: | Little Curlew |
Relatives in same Genus
Eastern Curlew (N. madagascariensis)
Whimbrel (N. phaeopus)
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