Medium large. Long straight bill, slender, slightly widened at tip. Sexes alike.
Adults: Breeding: Head, underparts, dull rusty buff grading to whitish belly. Top of head, finely streaked black. Upperparts, black with chestnut buff and white fringes. Eyebrow, whitish and prominent. Eyestrip, blackish. Black neck spots become coarse V-bars on flanks and undertail coverts. Underwing, white finely barred blackish. Bill, long, slender, slightly widened at tip, dark grey, some olive-yellow at base. Legs, greenish-yellow. Non-breeding: Upperparts, dark grey-brown with pale margins to wing feathers. Top of head, grey. Eyebrow, white, wider before the eye than behind. Eyestripe, broad and dark. Dingy grey-brown wash across upperbreast, contrasting with white underparts. Sparse dark V-bars and spots on flanks and undertail. In flight, conspicuous white wedge on back. Rump, white. Tail, irregularly barred blackish. Shortish-white wingbar on innerwing, parralleled by a longer white trailing edge. Underwing, white, finely barred blackish (looks grey in flight). In flight, toes extend beyond tail tip.
Immatures: Crown, back, shoulders, uniform grey-brown, with feathers broadly edged pale buff and inner median coverts edged chestnut. Neck, upperbreast, suffused pale grey-brown with indistinct fine streaking.
Other Names (World)
Short-billed Dowitcher, Common Dowitcher
Family
Scolopacidae (Sandpipers, Snipes, Phalaropes)
Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, Argentina, Aruba, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Brazil, Canada (P), Cayman Islands, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, French Guiana, Grenada, Guadeloupe, Guatemala, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica (NB), Martinique, Mexico, Montserrat, Netherlands Antilles, Nicaragua, Panama, Peru, Puerto Rico, St Kitts and Nevis, St Lucia, St Pierre and Miquelon (P), St Vincent and The Grenadines, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago, Turks and Caicos Islands (NB), USA (B), Venezuela, Virgin Islands (British) (NB), Virgin Islands (U.S.) (NB).
Vagrant to Australia, Belgium, Bermuda, Germany, Ghana, Greenland, Iceland, Ireland, Japan, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom.
Summer migrant. Breeds in subarctic North America, migrating to Caribbean, southern North America and Central America and south to Peru and Brazil. Recorded at Corner Inlet, Victoria, June 1995.
Short-billed Dowitcher (Limnodromus griseus) [XC76192]
by Doug Hynes from Churchill, MB, Canada (call, song)
Short-billed Dowitcher (Limnodromus griseus) [XC872701]
by CWS Yukon from Crag Lake, Tagish, Yukon, Canada (song, alternate breeding ground call)
Breeding Season (Guide)
Does not breed in Australia. Breeeds in subarctic North America.
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Nest
A shallow depression in clumps of grass or moss, lined with fine grasses, twigs and leaves.
Eggs (Guide)
3 - 4; olive-buff to brown. Incubation: about 21 days; by both parents.
Subspecies
Forms superspecies with Long-billed Dowitcher (Limnodromus scolopaceus). Formerly considered conspecific with Long-billed Dowitcher (Limnodromus scolopaceus).
The following 3 subspecies are recognised:
griseus (Gmelin, 1789) - Central Quebec and western Labrador. Winters on Atlantic coast from southern USA to Brazil.
caurinus Pitelka, 1950 - Southern Alaska and southern Yukon. Winters on Pacific coast from central USA to southern Peru.
hendersoni Rowan, 1932 - Eastern-central British Columbia to south-eastern Keewatin and central Manitoba. Winters from south-eastern USA to Panama.
Similar Species
Asian Dowitcher (Limnodromus semipalmatus)
Larger. Non-breeding with non-breeding. Underwing, white. Bill, longer and black. Head, neck, back, rump, finely streaked blackish.
Long-billed Dowitcher (Limnodromus scolopaceus)
Similar size. Non-breeding with non-breeding. Almost identical but tail feathers tend to be evenly barred with dark bars broader than white bars. Has a plain grey breast, bars on the flanks and under tail, a white lower back, and lacks white wing bars. Call is also distinct: a sharp high-pitched 'keek'.
Red Knot (Calidris canutus)
Slightly smaller. Breeding with breeding. Bill, much shorter. Legs, shorter and darker. Lacks the white wedge up the back.
Compare Images
The Field Guide to the Birds of Australia Pizzey, G., and Knight, E., 1997, Angus & Robertson, Sydney ISBN 0 207 19691 5
Field Guide to Australian Birds Morecombe, M., 2000, Steve Parish Publishing Pty Ltd. ISBN 1 876282 10 X
Field Guide to the Birds of Australia Simpson, K., and Day, N., 1999, 6th Edition, Viking ISBN 0 670 87918 5
Reader's Digest Complete Book of Australian Birds 1988, 2nd Edition, Reader's Digest ISBN 0 949819 99 9
What Bird is That? 1984, Revised Edition, Angus & Robertson, Sydney ISBN 0 207 14846 5
Handbook of Australian, New Zealand & Antarctic Birds 1990 - , Oxford University Press, Melbourne ISBN 0 19 553244 9
BirdLife International Species Factsheet