Limosa baueri Naumann, Vög. Deutschl. (1834), 8, 429.
Limosa novæ-zealandiæ Gray, Gen. Birds (1847), 3, 570; Sharpe,
Cat. Birds Brit. Mus. (1896), 24, 377; Hand-List (1899), 1, 159;
McGregor and Worcester, Hand-List (1906), 25.
Bantayan (McGregor); Bohol (Everett, McGregor); Cuyo (McGregor);
Luzon (Celestino); Negros (Steere Exp.); Samar (Whitehead). Alaska
and eastern Siberia; south in winter to Australia, New Zealand,
and Oceania.
"Adult male in breeding plumage.--Above blackish mottled with pale
chestnut-red; wing-coverts dark brown, with white edgings; many of
the coverts tinged with chestnut, especially inner greater coverts;
alula, primary-coverts, and quills blackish; secondaries brown, edged
with white, a longitudinal, subterminal mark of white along inner
web; innermost secondaries like the back; feathers of lower back
and rump blackish with white edges; upper tail-coverts barred with
black and white or chestnut and black; tail brown, tipped and barred
with white, the bars sometimes tinged with chestnut; crown-feathers
chestnut, streaked with blackish brown centers, narrower on hind
neck; broad eyebrow chestnut; lores and sides of face chestnut with
numerous blackish spots on lores; a whitish spot under eye; lower
parts chestnut with blackish streaks on sides of upper breast; under
wing-coverts white with indistinct, dusky brown spots; axillars white
barred with dusky brown. 'Bill clear reddish for its basal half,
blackish toward the terminal part, the base of the lower mandible
paler; feet blackish brown; iris brown.' (Taczanowski.) Length, 395;
wing, 220; tail, 77; culmen, 86; tarsus, 52; middle toe with claw, 36.
"Adult female in breeding plumage.--Similar to the male, but not so
entirely cinnamon-rufous below, and with remains of brown bars on
the under surface, especially on the flanks. Length, 406; culmen,
109; wing, 240; tail, 82; tarsus, 58.
"Young.--The young birds may be told from the adults in winter plumage
by their more tawny color, and by the ashy gray shade on the throat and
chest, as well as by the fulvescent bars and notches to the feathers
of the upper surface." (Sharpe.)
Winter plumage.--Above ashy brown with rusty shaft-lines; back, rump,
and upper tail-coverts white with more or less hidden black arrow
marks of dark brown, these taking the form of bars on longest coverts;
below nearly pure white; slightly dusky on breast and with a few narrow
shaft-lines on breast; under tail-coverts with broken, dusky bars;
primaries blackish brown; wing-coverts and secondaries with broken,
dusky bars; primaries blackish brown; coverts and secondaries gray
with blackish shaft-lines and hoary edges.
Birds taken in the Philippines in the spring are in the white and gray
winter dress, but in the autumn (September) many individuals arrive in
nearly perfect breeding plumage, while others are in mixed plumage,
showing numerous light feathers among the dark and chestnut feathers
of the summer dress.