A large shorebird that breeds in the Northern Hemisphere and passes through Japan during migration. It uses its long bill to search for food on tidal flats.
It has a dark-streaked brown body, long neck and legs, and a long down-curved bill. Females tend to have longer bills than males.
It walks slowly over mudflats and sandflats, probing the mud with its long bill for small crabs and molluscs. It migrates from breeding areas in Russia and northeastern China, passing Japan on the way to Australia and other southern areas.
It nests on small mounds in swampy ground and usually lays four eggs. Both sexes incubate; chicks leave soon after hatching and feed themselves on insects and other small invertebrates.
On nonbreeding grounds it mainly eats crabs and small molluscs, usually breaking off a crab’s legs before swallowing the legs and body.
It has a thin white eye-ring, a brown rump and a grey-brown tail with narrow dark bars. Juveniles have neatly white-edged, notched back feathers and finer underpart streaking.
An extinction-risk assessment has not been added yet.