The sharp-tailed sandpiper (Calidris acuminata) is a small-medium migratory wader or shorebird, found mostly in Siberia during the summer breeding period (June to August) and Australia for wintering (September to March).

[4] It has a mottled chestnut-brown upper body with sharp-looking feathers with a dark centre, a chestnut cap on its head and a brown stripe through each eye.

They have a complex migration, with adults departing Siberia in July and juveniles in August to head south, where the majority of the population winters in Australasia.

Staying here from mid-August to late October to fatten up, it is presumed they then take a direct non-stop trans-Pacific flight of more than 10,000 km to reach Australia and New Zealand.

On passage between breeding and wintering areas they favor the muddy edges of shallow freshwater or brackish wetlands with grass, emergent or inundated sedges, saltmarsh or other low vegetation.

[7] Once the ephemeral terrestrial wetlands have dried out, they tend to be seen on coastal mudflats, salt marsh and brackish lagoons and less often on similar wet fields of short grass.

[5] Sharp-tailed sandpipers breed from to June to August in the short Siberian summer, making shallow, hollow, lined nests made of leaves and grass.

Occasionally they forage on dry or wet mats of algae, among rotting seaweed or seagrass on beaches, edges of stony wetlands and exposed reefs.

[11] The major threats to the species are habitat loss, with the staging areas used in migration being reduced through reclamation of land for aquaculture or degraded from human activities.

Habitat degradation also occurs in the form of the loss of riparian vegetation, invasive species, water pollution, and hydrological regime changes from human-induced regulation.