This bird has a short dark bill, yellow legs and a black band at the end of the white rump.

These birds migrate to the Pacific coasts of North and South America, from southern Alaska to Tierra del Fuego.

The surfbird was formally described in 1789 by the German naturalist Johann Friedrich Gmelin in his revised and expanded edition of Carl Linnaeus's Systema Naturae.

[2] Gmelin based his description on the "streaked sandpiper" that had been described in 1785 by the English ornithologist John Latham from a specimen collected in 1778 from Sandwich Sound (now Prince William Sound, Alaska) on James Cook's third voyage to the Pacific Ocean.

[5][6] The genus name is from Ancient Greek kalidris or skalidris, a term used by Aristotle for some grey-coloured waterside birds.

[8] More recent data suggests it is very close genetically to the red and great knots and should be included in Calidris.

[13] Surfbirds their breeding plumage from March through August, and have white heads, necks breast and belly which are streaked with black, except for the crown which are rusty.

[9] The surfbird has the longest and narrowest non-breeding distribution of any North American bird, being found from Kodiak Island in Alaska to the Straits of Magellan at the southern tip of South America.

[13] Its breeding habitat is alpine tundra, preferably rocky ridges dominated by scree, rock fields, lichens, dwarf shrubs and Dryas (mountain avens), and less commonly in tundra with mosses and sedges.

On one study examining stomach contents, flies (Diptera), including eggs, pupae and adults, composed 55% of the food taken by surfbirds, and beetles Coleoptera 36%.

The surfbird arrives in its breeding habitat in early May; due to high winds in their exposed nesting areas the snow has usually cleared by then.