Scientific name: Limicola falcinellus (Pontoppidan, 1763)
Bird group: Waders
Field characters. 16 cm. Upperparts black with cream and red-brown feather-margins forming scaled pattern. Head has dark crown- and eye-stripe and white, forked supercilium; throat and breast longly striped in dark-brown and cream, rest of underparts white. Long heavy black bill, kinked at tip; short legs yellow-grey. In winter upperparts grey-brown and less heavily scaled; breast markings reduced. In winter closely similar to Dunlin, but differs in size, bill-shape, vaguely forked supercilium, and dark shoulder patch (like Sanderling).
Voice. Usual note is a dry, deep, trilling "chrreep".
Distribution. Locally a fairly rare breeding bird; winter range poorly known, but probably a rare passage migrant.
Habitat. Breeds in wet bogs and marshes; during rest of year, on passage, it occurs on wet pond margins, wet meadows, inlets of fjords, shallow lagoons, and sometimes muddy beaches.
Food. Invertebrates, largely obtained by probing; in summer also seeds.