Numenius arquata

CH — Critically endangered

CH — Scarce resident

Like the common snipe, these birds are dependent on damp habitats, where they probe the mud for food with their long beaks. As ground-nesters, they cannot survive on regularly mown meadows, since their nests and chicks are destroyed by mowing during the breeding season. They thus require, above all, wet meadows which are only mown once, in the autumn. While a few suitable marshlands still exist in Switzerland, they are crisscrossed by paths, and so the birds are frequently disturbed. No broods of Eurasian curlew have been recorded in this country since 2006.