The Black-tailed Godwit (Limosa limosa) is one of Sweden's most threatened breeding waders, a large, elegant bird with a long, essentially straight bill and, in breeding dress, an unmistakable brick-red plumage. The male shows a brick-red head, neck and breast above black-and-brown streaked upperparts, a white undertail, yellow legs and a bill with a pink-orange base and dark tip; the female is similar but paler and more subdued in tone. In flight a broad white wingband and a black tail band are visible year-round in all plumages and are the surest way to identify the species at any season, including the plainer grey-brown winter dress.
With only 2,000–5,000 breeding pairs — the great majority on Gotland and Öland, while the once-strong mainland population in Skåne and Blekinge has nearly disappeared — the Black-tailed Godwit is classed as Endangered in Sweden, though the earlier steep decline has largely been halted through conservation work such as restored grazing on coastal meadows. It breeds in wet meadows and marshland, a habitat that has shrunk dramatically due to drainage and overgrowth, nesting in a shallow scrape trampled into short grass and lined with grass and leaves; the female lays four olive-brown, dark-spotted eggs, incubated by both parents for 22–24 days, and the precocial chicks can fly after about 25–30 days. It feeds chiefly on worms and insect larvae probed from wet ground, along with aquatic invertebrates such as crustaceans and midge larvae taken from shallow ditches and pools. Its most dramatic behaviour is the male's song-flight display, a trumpeting, rapidly repeated "kri-wi-wi" or "vita-vita-vita" given in a diving arc over the breeding ground, alongside a "kewit" contact call and a sharp, repeated "wie-wie-wie" alarm near the nest.
Read about this species in Swedish →