On the afternoon 24 April professional guide, Jeri Langham, found an ABA Code-3 Curlew Sandpiper (Calidris ferruginea) on the San Diego Bay mudflats at the end of J Street/Marina Parkway to the delight of his clients.
Curlew Sandpiper is a Eurasian species and in alternate plumage one of the more beautiful shorebirds. Although no subspecies are recognized, females from northeastern Siberia are less darkly barred than females in the western parts of the range. This long-distance migrant breeds in two separate areas. They arrive in their breeding grounds in early June, often leaving their wintering areas in late April. Like many shorebird species, many one-year-old birds remain in their wintering areas throughout the summer (coastal sub-Saharan Africa, India, Australia, and southern Asia). In the ABA Area, Curlew Sandpipers are more frequently reported from the Atlantic than from the Pacific coast but they have bred in Alaska (The Shorebird Guide, O’Brien et al.).
The recently discovered "Cox's Sandpiper" has been shown to be a hybrid between Curlew Sandpiper and most probably Pectoral Sandpiper (Handbook of the Birds of the World, Volume 3). Another aberrant Calidris, "Cooper's Sandpiper", is now thought to be a hybrid between Curlew Sandpiper and Sharp-tailed Sandpiper. Mitochondrial DNA of "Cox's Sandpiper" has been shown to be identical to that of Curlew Sandpiper and since mitochondrial DNA is inherited, the female parent was a Curlew Sandpiper. Curlew Sandpiper has also hybridized with White-rumped Sandpiper (HBW, Volume 3).
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