Head to head
Long-Billed Curlew vs Ruddy Turnstone
A long-billed curlew and a ruddy turnstone can end up feeding on the very same stretch of coastal mudflat, yet each has built its entire foraging strategy around a completely different tool, one reaching straight down and the other flipping the world over to see what's underneath.
| Long-Billed Curlew | Ruddy Turnstone | |
|---|---|---|
| Scientific name | Numenius americanus | Arenaria interpres |
| Bill shape | Extremely long, downward-curving | Short, stout, slightly upturned |
| Foraging technique | Deep probing into burrows | Flipping stones and debris |
| Breeding habitat | Interior shortgrass prairie | Arctic tundra |
| Diet breadth | Invertebrates from deep burrows | Broad, including eggs and carrion |
| Wintering habitat | Coastal mudflats and beaches | Coastlines worldwide |
| Population trend | Decreasing | Decreasing regionally |
| Conservation status | Least Concern | Least Concern |
Long-Billed Curlew vs Ruddy Turnstone: common questions
Which of these two shorebirds has the more unusual bill?
The long-billed curlew has the more physically extreme bill, the longest of any North American shorebird and sharply curved downward to reach prey buried far deeper than most shorebirds can access, while the ruddy turnstone's short, stout, slightly upturned bill is built for leverage rather than reach, wedging under and flipping objects instead of probing deep into mud.
Do the long-billed curlew and ruddy turnstone eat the same things?
Not entirely — the long-billed curlew feeds mainly on invertebrates reached by deep probing, while the ruddy turnstone has a notably broader diet, opportunistically eating bird eggs, carrion, and discarded food scraps in addition to the invertebrates it exposes by flipping over stones and debris.
Where do these two birds breed?
The long-billed curlew breeds on interior shortgrass prairie across the western United States and southern Canada, while the ruddy turnstone breeds much farther north on Arctic tundra, and both species then migrate to spend the winter along coastlines, sometimes sharing the very same mudflats.