Short yellow legs and dark grey UpP. Very similar to H.brevipes, but slightly darker, with longer wings, broader, more extensive dark barring on underparts including central central UnT-C, distinctive flight call is rippling trill of ten notes. Female averages larger. Non-breeding adults has plain dark grey UpP, neck, breast and flanks, supercilium only clear above lores. Juvenile as non-breeding adult, but with pale fringes to feather of UpP.
Not Threatened.
Short yellow legs and dark grey UpP. Very similar to H.brevipes, but slightly darker, with longer wings, broader, more extensive dark barring on underparts including central central UnT-C, distinctive flight call is rippling trill of ten notes. Female averages larger. Non-breeding adults has plain dark grey UpP, neck, breast and flanks, supercilium only clear above lores. Juvenile as non-breeding adult, but with pale fringes to feather of UpP.
26-29 cm, 72-213 g, wingspan 54 cm
Taxonomy:
- Scolopax incana Gmelin, 1789, Moorea (Eimeo), Society Group, Pacific Ocean. Sometimes placed in genus Tringa. Forms superspecies with H. brevipes, with which sometimes considered conspecific. Monotypic. (source: Handbook of the Birds of World)
Distribution:
- Extreme NE Siberia and S Alaska E to Yukon R and NW British Columbia. Winters in SW USA and W Mexico, Ecuador and Galapagos Is; also Hawaiian Is, C & S Pacific Is to E New Guinea and NE Australia.
Mostly restricted to the alpine zone, usually breeds along rocky or scrubby vegetated edges of mountain streams and lakes; frequents rapidly-flowing streams and tundra habitats, wet meadows, moraine deposits, scree slopes, braided rivers, sometimes found in forest clearings away from water. Often nests on the ground in a rocky or gravelly site. In Prince William Sound, Alaska, known to nest above tide line on gravel areas of the immediate coast, and also commonly observed nesting on/near sparsely vegetated tailing piles in areas of old placer mining activity.
Eats polychaete worms, mollusks, crustaceans, insects, amphipods, and fish (Gill et al. 2002). During breeding season feeds along edges of rocky, gravelly mountain streams; apparently specializes in capturing larvae of caddisflies and aquatic dipterans (Bent 1929 and Stout 1967 in Johnsgard 1981). May wade into belly-deep water and completely submerge head while foraging. Probes in sand, mud, silt, rocky and arboreal crevices, among detritus, between and beneath submerged rocks, and among sessile invertebrates.
Arrival and pairing on northern breeding grounds occurs from mid-May to early June, with males generally preceding females in arrival (Gill et al. 2002). Single clutch laid per season (no evidence of second broods although replacement clutch likely if initial clutch is lost early in incubation), usually 4 eggs laid in late May-early June; incubated by both sexes for 23–25 day