Eastern Curlew

The Eastern Curlew is easily our largest migrant shorebird or wader; in fact it is the world’s largest shorebird. Its large size and incredibly long down-curved bill makes it easy to identify though it could be confused with the Whimbrel, which is smaller and has a much shorter bill in proportion to its body length.

Eastern Curlews breed in bogs and peaty marshes in eastern and far south-eastern Siberia, northern Mongolia and Manchuria with the bulk of the population migrating to Australia. Here their stronghold is tidal mud flats in Moreton Bay and the Great Sandy Strait in Queensland.

As the Gippsland Lakes are only weakly tidal, and then only at the far eastern end, we rarely see Eastern Curlews on the Lakes due to the lack of extensive tidal flats. The birds we see on the Gippsland Lakes are probably passing through, to or from places such as Corner Inlet and Western Port Bay to the west.

Therefore, it was a surprise and great delight to find two Eastern Curlews during our weekly beach nesting birds monitoring run on Tuesday 15.01.19. The first bird we found was on the southern shore of Rigby Island just west of Lakes Entrance where shallow water prevented us from getting close. A little later a second bird was sighted standing in shallow water near the sand spit at the east end of Flannagans Island.

Please click on photos to enlarge.

The sand spit where we found the second Eastern Curlew is a favoured resting place for many water bird species including Swans, Cormorants, Gulls, Terns, Herons, Spoonbills, Ibis and shorebirds such as Hooded Plover, Pied Oystercatcher, Masked Lapwing and occasionally migrant shorebirds.

Eastern Curlews are very wary birds and are often the first shorebird in a mixed species flock to take flight. To our further surprise the Flannagans Island Curlew did not take flight. Perhaps as we were on a boat the bird was less wary of our presence and we could approach the bird slowly and quietly by drifting with the outboard motor off. This gave us a photo opportunity with good early morning light and as the bird was standing in shallow water we had some near-perfect reflections of the subject.

At first I thought the Curlew would fly off at our approach – it was certainly keeping an eye on us and looked restless.

A couple of times it did a wing stretch which is often a sign a bird is about to fly.

A feather ruffle can also signal nervousness and a pending departure.

The bird would then settle and look about to ensure all was safe.

A preen can be a sign the bird is not too disturbed. The very long bill is good for reaching hard to get to spots. 

More preening.

The bird even made a couple of feeding probes with its highly specialised bill.

Here the amazing bill is held slightly open.

I must admit the rarely seen subject, the close proximity, the early morning light and reflections led me to take a lot of photos. However it is always a good idea to snap plenty when the opportunity arises and you never know when you might capture an interesting move by the subject. Also, inevitably some shots are not sharp when taking hand held photos especially from a moving boat so taking a number gives you the ability to select the sharpest images.

Males and females look the same except for bill length – the females have longer bills (1). Is this a male or female? The bill looks a little short to me so I would say a male.

The bird is calling - the call is loud, “beautiful, haunting and melancholic” - Morecombe).

The Curlew moved about giving left and right side photo opportunities.

To finish, my favourite photo of the Curlew.

Sadly, Eastern Curlews are yet another endangered species which has suffered a large and rapid population decline in recent years, mainly due to loss of refuelling habitat caused by land reclamation along its migration flyway.

Note (1) Bill length, males 137-169, females 164-202 mm.