Long-billed Curlew

Long-billed Curlew typically exhibit behavior that reflects their adaptation to open habitats. They engage in foraging by walking or running, employing a coordinated group strategy during breeding to disturb insects for consumption. When taking flight, long-billed Curlew perform a distinctive jump with a subsequent unique wing and leg coordination upon landing or stopping. Highly territorial around their nests, long-billed Curlew display remarkable threat gestures to fend off intruders, such as the crouch-and-run display paired with a deceitful concealment tactic. Moreover, long-billed Curlew's courtship involves notable aerial performances alongside ground-based scraping and nest gestures. Monogamous pairing is common, with reoccurring bonds in consecutive seasons frequent. Outside the breeding period, long-billed Curlew are sociable, foraging and resting with conspecifics and other shorebirds, often demonstrating one-legged resting poses.

The population was significantly reduced at the end of the 19th century by hunting, though numbers have rebounded somewhat in more-recent times. The species was formerly classified as Near Threatened by the IUCN, but new research has confirmed that the long-billed curlew is again common and widespread. Consequently, it has been downlisted to Least Concern status in 2008. Candlestick Point in San Francisco was named after this indigenous bird, and subsequently Candlestick Park stadium inherited the name. The species had dramatically declined in the San Francisco area by the early 20th century already, being "practically extinct" in San Mateo County in 1916. By the time the stadium was constructed in the 1950s, there was no remnant of the huge, local flocks of "candlestick birds" left.