Little Curlew 小杓鷸 Numenius minutus
Category I. Passage migrant, scarce in spring and rare in autumn, with one winter record.
IDENTIFICATION
Apr. 2020, Michelle and Peter Wong.
28-34 cm. Resembles a small Whimbrel but paler overall with small head, short neck, more extensive pinkish base to a smaller and straighter bill, paler lores, paler median crown stripes, finer streaking on the chest, dark underwings and pink legs.
Apr. 2020, Michelle and Peter Wong.
In flight the pale belly to undertail coverts and barred underwings are distinctive; in addition, lacks white on lower back and rump.
VOCALISATIONS
The typical flight call is higher-pitched and less forceful than that of Whimbrel and is uttered in short more hesitant bursts of 2-3 notes.
DISTRIBUTION & HABITAT PREFERENCE
Almost 50% of records prior to 1998 were at Kai Tak during the five-year period 1974-79 when regular surveys were carried out in the preferred habitat of short grass. Only two records have occurred at the extensive grass areas of the current airport at Chek Lap Kok due to a much lower intensity of survey. Since 1999 the favoured site has been Mai Po NR; most other records have occurred at Long Valley and other sites in the lowland areas of the New Territories.
It appears most birds may either fly over the south China coast to staging areas inland or, as Lane (1987) suggests, migrate to the east of Hong Kong.
OCCURRENCE
Most records occur in spring, mainly in the second half of April and first half of May (Figure 1). Extreme dates are 5 April 2014 and 2 June 1978. Autumn records have fallen in the period from 26 September to 29 October and have involved up to four birds, though only singles have been noted this century. There is one winter record of a bird that remained on a golf course at Chek Lap Kok during 18-25 December 2013.
An exceptional influx in 1985 produced a peak count of 50 at Tsim Bei Tsui on 28 April. The next highest count is of 16 at Kai Tak on 12 May 1978, though most records have been of just one or two birds. The highest count this century is of seven at Mai Po on 1 May 2020.
First recorded on 11 May 1952 (Dove and Goodhart 1955), Little Curlew was not subsequently recorded until 1974, after which systematic surveys recorded it annually at the former airport at Kai Tak until 1979.
BEHAVIOUR, FORAGING & DIET
Forages for invertebrates in grassy areas. Rarely seen on intertidal mudflats.
RANGE & SYSTEMATICS
Monotypic. Breeds in northeast Siberia between approximately 100oE and 165oE, south as far as 65oN and winters in Australia (Van Gils et al. 2020). In China a rare migrant through much of the country (Liu and Chen 2020).
CONSERVATION STATUS
IUCN: Least Concern. Population trend stable.
Figure 1.
Dove, R. S. and H. J. Goodhart (1955). Field observations from the Colony of Hong Kong. Ibis 97: 311-340.
Lane, B. (1987). Shorebirds in Australia. Nelson, Melbourne.
Liu, Y. and Y. H. Chen (2020). The CNG Field Guide to the Birds of China (in Chinese). Hunan Science and Technology Publication House, Changsha.
Van Gils, J., P. Wiersma, and G. M. Kirwan (2020). Little Curlew (Numenius minutus), version 1.0. In Birds of the World (J. del Hoyo, A. Elliott, J. Sargatal, D. A. Christie, and E. de Juana, Editors). Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY, USA. https://doi.org/10.2173/bow.litcur.01
