Habitat and Ecology
This species is fully migratory and travels on a broad front across Europe (del Hoyo et al. 1996). It breeds from May to August (Hayman et al. 1986) with males gathering in suitable lekking areas (del Hoyo et al. 1996, Flint et al. 1984) and females nesting solitarily or in semi-colonial groups (del Hoyo et al. 1996). The species departs the breeding grounds between late-June and August, returning from the wintering grounds from March to mid-May (del Hoyo et al. 1996). The species migrates in large flocks of hundreds or thousands of individuals (del Hoyo et al. 1996) and forms huge dense groups on its wintering grounds (Hayman et al. 1986). The species inhabits tundra habitats from the coast to the Arctic treeline (Johnsgard et al. 1981, del Hoyo et al. 1996) during the breeding season, requiring adjacent foraging, lekking and nesting areas (del Hoyo et al. 1996). It shows a preference for dry mounds and slopes with low willow Salix spp. and dwarf birch Betula spp. as lekking areas (del Hoyo et al. 1996, Snow and Perrins 1998), and dry patches of tall sedge as nesting sites (Snow and Perrins 1998). Suitable foraging habitats include littoral belts, deltas (Snow and Perrins 1998), coastal saltmarshes (Johnsgard et al. 1981) and extensive lowland freshwater wetlands such as small shallow lakes with marginal vegetation (Johnsgard et al. 1981, Hayman et al. 1986, del Hoyo et al. 1996, Snow and Perrins 1998), grassy hummocky marshes (Johnsgard et al. 1981, Hayman et al. 1986, del Hoyo et al. 1996, Snow and Perrins 1998), and damp swampy grasslands (Johnsgard et al. 1981, Hayman et al. 1986, del Hoyo et al. 1996), with shallow pools or ditches (del Hoyo et al. 1996). During the non-breeding season the species occupies the muddy margins of brackish, saline and alkaline lakes, ponds, pools, rivers, marshes and food-plains (del Hoyo et al. 1996), as well as freshly mown or grazed short-sward grasslands (Hayman et al. 1986, del Hoyo et al. 1996) and wheat- or rice-fields (del Hoyo et al. 1996), usually roosting at night in the shallow waters of lake shores (del Hoyo et al. 1996). The species rarely utilises intertidal habitats (Hayman et al. 1986) but may frequent tidal mudflats and lagoons in India (del Hoyo et al. 1996). During the breeding season the species's diet consists almost entirely of adult and larval terrestrial and aquatic insects such as Coleoptera and Diptera (del Hoyo et al. 1996). On passage and during the winter the species takes insects (e.g. caddisflies, water-bugs, mayflies and grasshoppers), small crustaceans, spiders, small molluscs, annelid worms, frogs, small fish and the seeds of rice and other cereals, sedges, grasses and aquatic plants (del Hoyo et al. 1996). The nest is a shallow scrape (del Hoyo et al. 1996) concealed in marsh vegetation or meadow grass (del Hoyo et al. 1996) on damp ground (Johnsgard et al. 1981) usually more than 100 m away from the nearest lek site (Johnsgard et al. 1981). The species nests solitarily or semi-colonially, neighbouring nests occasionally only a few metres apart (del Hoyo et al. 1996). Management information Intensive grazing of grassland (> 1 cow per hectare) was found to attract a higher abundance of this species in Hungary (Baldi et al. 2005).
Systems
- Terrestrial
- Freshwater
- Marine
