While walking along the California Coast, I spotted this large shorebird with a long body, long neck and small head. It had a distinctive long, downward curved bill and a striped head. It is found in mudflats, beaches, and coastal marshes.
Whimbrels probe with their long bills into mudflats or wet sand for invertebrates such as crabs; they walk slowly through areas where water is very shallow. Flocks moving in migration, or between roosting and feeding areas and vocalize often.
Some migrating Whimbrels make a nonstop overwater flight of 2,500 miles from southern Canada or New England to South America. One bird in particular, named Hope, was captured on the coast of Virginia in 2009 and fitted with a satellite transmitter. Over the next three years, researchers tracked for her more than 50,000 miles traveling back and forth between her breeding areas for five seasons.
In many regions, the primary winter food of the Whimbrel is Fiddler Crab. The curve of the Whimbrel’s bill nicely matches the shape of Fiddler Crab burrows. The bird reaches into the crab’s burrow, extracts the crab, washes it (if it is muddy), and sometimes breaks off the claws and legs before swallowing it.
Whimbrels tend to concentrate in flocks at a few favored spots in migration, so that the observer sees either many of them or very small numbers. Belonging to the genus Numenius, the given scientific name for this bird means “new moon” in Greek, a reference to the bird’s bill shape, which resembles a crescent moon.
Seeing this elegant, intricately patterned shorebird added another example to my list of cool creatures that I encountered while visiting the Golden State.
