Asian Dowitcher

The Asian dowitcher is a medium-sized wader, 30–36 centimetres long, weighing 170–300 grams, with a wing of 17.4–18.8 centimetres and a wingspan of 55–60 centimetres; females are slightly larger. Breeding males are rusty-red on the chest and belly, the rump and uppertail are mottled, the flight feathers dark brown and the tail barred white and blackish-brown. The legs are dark and the bill long, straight and dark. In winter the upperparts are dark brown with broad whitish fringes, so the bird looks grey from afar. It resembles the slightly larger bar-tailed godwit but its bill is straight, stout and black, slightly flattened and broadened at the base, where the godwit's is a little upturned, and its mottled rump does not contrast sharply with the tail. Its calls are creaking. (Russian Wikipedia, general species account)

It breeds in steppes and forest-steppe in four unconnected areas: southern western Siberia and northern Kazakhstan; the Baikal region south to the valley of the Great Lakes in Mongolia; the Daurian steppes including central Manchuria; and the Ussuri valley. In Mongolia a large colony was found at Orog Nuur. Nesting is patchy and unpredictable, in loose colonies of 10–20 pairs in very wet places, usually with two eggs, and the birds are very sensitive to water level. They winter from the Malay Peninsula to Indonesia, most of all on Sumatra and Java, and at a few sites in northern Australia. (Russian Wikipedia, general species account)