The Curlew Sandpiper is a common visitor during the Australian summer, congregating in large flocks, sometimes comprising thousands of birds, at sheltered intertidal mudflats and also at the muddy margins of terrestrial wetlands. They often mix with other species of shorebirds, pecking at invertebrates on the surface of the mud or making shallow probes below its surface, sometimes wading in belly-deep water while probing. Feeding becomes more intense as migration time approaches, with birds fuelling up for their long flight back to their breeding grounds in Siberia.
