At first – or even second and third – glance, whimbrels look very similar to curlews.
If you think you’ve spotted a whimbrel in the spring or autumn, here’s a few differences for which to look: their calls being the best giveaway of all.
While curlews are a familiar sight and sound along our coastline, whimbrels are much more rare. They spend the winter in Africa and then make the long journey back to their more northerly breeding areas of Greenland, Iceland, Siberia and the far north of Scotland in the spring. They stop off along our coastline for a much-needed pitstop, before continuing onwards. As ‘passage’ migrants they pass through but won’t stop to breed here.
Like curlews, they have a distinctive down-curved bill: they are the only large wading birds which share this feature. They’re also a similar size and grey-brown colour.
So how do we tell them apart?
A curlew
A whimbrel
Size
While both species are large waders, whimbrels are a bit smaller – more like the size of an oystercatcher, compared with curlews which are almost as big as herring gulls. But this isn’t an easy comparison unless they happen to be standing near each other.
Bill shape
Whimbrels’ bills are shorter than curlews, and are more abruptly bent at the tip: they have a straight bill with a bend at the end rather than curlews’ uniformly curved bills. However individuals of both species vary in bill length so bills are a useful but not infallible guide.
A curlew’s uniformly curved bill
A whimbrel’s bills is shorter than curlews and more abruptly bent at the tip
Head colouring
Compared with a curlew, whimbrels have a stronger head pattern: look out for the whimbrel’s dark eye-stripe and crown with its distinctive pale stripe down the middle. But just to catch you out, sometimes whimbrels have surprisingly plain faces, and curlews can have a more patterned face than the norm.
Flight
Whimbrels are said to have faster wingbeats than curlews – a tricky distinction to use unless you’re super familiar with the wing movements of curlews.
Call
It’s the call which gives the best ID clue. While curlews have a beautiful melancholy ‘cur-lee, cur-lee’ call, the whimbrel’s call is less fluting and more confident, often heard as a rippling, seven-note sound. In the past it was known as the ‘seven whistler’.
Curlews’ melancholy ‘cur-lee’ call
A whimbrel’s seven note call.
Recorded by Agris Celmins, www.xeno-canto.org/832601.
