Short-billed Dowitcher

Short-billed Dowitcher
Scientific Classification
Kingdom: Animalia Phylum: Chordata Class: Aves Order: Charadriiformes Family: Scolopacidae Genus: Limnodromus Species: griseus
Binomial name
Limnodromus griseus

The Short-billed Dowitcher, Limnodromus griseus, is a medium-sized shorebird.

Adults have yellowish legs and a long straight dark bill, somewhat shorter than that of the Long-billed Dowitcher. The body is dark brown on top and reddish underneath. The tail has a black and white barred pattern. There are three subspecies with slight variations in appearance:

• L. g. griseus has a white belly and barred flanks.
• L. g. hendersoni has a reddish belly and spotted flanks.
• L. g. caurinus has a white belly with heavily barred flanks and densely spotted breast.

None of these combines the reddish belly and barred flanks of the Long-billed Dowitcher. The winter plumage is largely grey.

Their breeding habitat is bogs or forest clearings south of the tree line in northern North America. L. g. griseus breeds in northern Quebec; L. g. hendersoni breeds in north central Canada; L. g. caurinus breeds in southern Alaska. They nest on the ground, usually near water.

They migrate to the southern United States and as far south as Brazil. This bird is more likely to be seen near ocean coasts during migration than the Long-billed Dowitcher. This species occurs in western Europe only as an extremely rare vagrant.

These birds forage by probing in shallow water or on wet mud. They mainly eat insects, mollusks, crustaceans and marine worms, but also eat some plant material.

The call of this bird is more mellow than that of the Long-billed Dowitcher, and is useful in identification, particularly of the difficult adult plumages.