Long-billed Curlew

Status: Existing data suggest that Long-billed Curlew populations are declining throughout the western Great Plains, but tend to increase in the Great Basin region.

Habitat/Range: Long-billed Curlews breed in short-grass communities, preferring native prairies but also occupying grazed mixed-grass communities and scrub prairie. Their breeding range extends from south-central Canada, south-central Washington, southeastern Oregon, and southern Idaho to western Nebraska, northeastern New Mexico, northwestern Utah and western Arizona. After the breeding season is over, Long-billed Curlews form flocks and migrate to coastal habitats, mostly from California and Texas into Mexico. While they are most often encountered on tidal flats and other coastal habitats, wintering curlews also occur on inland grassland and agricultural habitats such as those found in the Central Valley of California, west Texas, and northern Mexico.

Threats: Habitat loss, fragmentation and degradation due to the conversion of grass and rangeland to cropland and pastures.

Restoration Potential: Protecting open prairie from plowing and cultivation is essential to restoration.

Places We Are Protecting:

• Saltillo Grasslands Protected Area, Mexico
• Janos Grasslands, Mexico
• Bohart Ranch/Chico Basin, Colorado
• Matador Ranch, Montana
• Missouri Coteau, Canada
• Bitter Creek, Montana/Grasslands National Park, Canada

Illustrations by David Allen Sibley from The National Audubon Society: The Sibley Guide to Birds published by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., New York. Copyright © 2000 by Chanticleer Press and David Allen Sibley. No illustrations may be copied, reproduced, or reused without the express written permission of the copyright holders.