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Characteristics and Range Dowitchers are medium-sized shorebirds known for their sewing-machine-like feeding behaviour, the Short-billed Dowitcher being the only one that breeds in Manitoba. Its breeding distribution has three disjunct areas corresponding to the three subspecies: griseus around James Bay and east across the Labrador Peninsula, hendersoni from Hudson Bay west to northern Alberta, and caurinus from the coastal mountains of northern British Columbia and the Alaskan Panhandle south to Haida Gwaii. It is coastal in winter, from California to Peru and from Virginia to the Caribbean and to Alagoas, Brazil. Manitoba-breeding birds (hendersoni subspecies) probably winter along the Atlantic coast (Jehl et al. 2001).

Distribution, Abundance, and Habitat There is little consistency in how the breeding range of this species has been drawn for Manitoba; for example, Jehl et al. (2001) show breeding in a small area of the Hudson Bay coast and disjunctly in the Lynn Lake area whereas The Birds of Manitoba shows a contiguous range across the northern third of the province. Atlas results show a core breeding range in a strip around the Hudson Bay coast from at least Cape Tatnum to the Caribou River, extending inland to Gillam in the south and to Tadoule Lake in the north (~250 km inland). The range dœs not appear to extend north of 59.5°N since this species was not found in any of the 3 well-surveyed squares within 4 km of the Nunavut land border. Results from the second Ontario Breeding Bird Atlas suggest this range is probably contiguous around western Hudson Bay (Burke and Sutherland 2007). Atlassers also identified a second area of summer occupancy in "sedge taiga" habitat within Manitoba's Boreal Softwood Shield: possible and probable breeding records in three squares near Lynn Lake, a single record near The Pas, and two records east of Lake Winnipeg. These could be interpreted as oversummering records; however, there are historical records suggestive of breeding in the central Interlake near Lake St. Martin (The Birds of Manitoba).

In Manitoba, the Short-billed Dowitcher's habitat consists of sparsely treed bogs, especially with black spruce or tamarack, and sedge meadows with scattered trees or tall shrubs. This species is part of a cohort of shorebirds, including Wilson's Snipe, Solitary Sandpiper, and both yellowlegs, whose breeding habitat is most strongly associated with treed wetland complexes as opposed to coastal tundra (Jehl et al. 2001). Although it perches in trees and gives vocal aerial displays audible to 500 m (Jehl et al. 2001), the Short-billed Dowitcher has a very short period of territorial calling and becomes relatively inconspicuous during the core atlassing period (Jehl and Lin 2001). The small number of detections in the Boreal Softwood Shield may therefore underestimate the extent of its occurrence in central Manitoba.

Trends, Conservation, and Recommendations This is one of several shorebirds that suffered massive declines from market hunting in the 1800s, recovered somewhat by the 1950s, but began declining again in the 1970s (Jehl et al. 2001). The Short-billed Dowitcher is considered a species of Moderate Concern in the Canadian Shorebird Conservation Plan (Donaldson et al. 2000) and of High Concern in the U.S. Shorebird Conservation Plan (Brown et al. 2001), both plans pointing to strong unexplained declines along the east coast. Although Jehl and Lin (2001) noted a slight increase in the Churchill area, Rockwell et al. (2009) reported a decrease in Wapusk National Park. The overall trend for the Manitoba-breeding population remains unclear.

Christian Artuso

Recommended citation: Artuso, C. 2018. Short-billed Dowitcher in Artuso, C., A. R. Couturier, K. D. De Smet, R. F. Koes, D. Lepage, J. McCracken, R. D. Mooi, and P. Taylor (eds.). The Atlas of the Breeding Birds of Manitoba, 2010-2014. Bird Studies Canada. Winnipeg, Manitoba http://www.birdatlas.mb.ca/accounts/speciesaccount.jsp?sp=SBDO&lang=en [11 Oct 2024]