Whimbrel

Name: Whimbrel

Scientific name: Numenius phaeopus

Category: Birds

Nature Stars: 60

What are nature stars?

About: A large wader about 40cm long, smaller with a shorter, thicker neck, shorter bill and shorter legs than Curlew. Streaky greyish brown, with long bluey-grey legs and a long, downwards curved, greyish bill. When they fly, Whimbrel have a white wedge on the

How to identify: Told from the larger Curlew by the shorter bill and strong face pattern, with a dark crown with a pale stripe down the middle and dark eyestripe. The call is a series of about seven whistles.

Where: Nests on moorland in Shetland, Orkney and the far north of Scotland. Fairly common on migration on wetlands and wet grassland throughout the country.

Natural Superpowers

• Predator: 40
• Agility: 50
• Rarity: 60
• Cute factor: 40
• Traveller: 100

Fantastic fact: Apart from the Whimbrel and Curlew, there are six other species of curlew in the world, of which two (the Eskimo Curlew of North America and the Slender-billed Curlew of eastern Europe) may be extinct.

Photograph credit: Mike Baird