Whimbrels (Numenius phaeopus) are large shorebirds with long, curved bills well suited to digging in the holes of fiddler crabs and extracting them for dinner. Whimbrels are wide-ranging, breeding in the Arctic and then migrating as far as 2,500 miles nonstop for the winter in South America.
The photos on this page were taken on the beach at Breezy Point, Queens, close to the beach at Fort Tilden (2021) and farther south (2018).
Whimbrel, Breezy Point beach near Fort Tilden, October 8, 2021
There were three whimbrels running along the beach, just south of the beach at Fort Tilden. The shots in this slide show were taken there on October 8, 2021.
This curlew made a stop on the beach at Breezy Point, Queens, on September 21, 2018, and ran around looking for food.
Whimbrel at Breezy Point, Queens, September 19, 2018
The music in the Filming the Feathers video is the third movement of Mozart's Jupiter Symphony, arranged for recorders and performed by Papalin (obtained from MusOpen.org, a royalty-free music source).