AUTUMN VISITOR?Whimbrel pass through Ireland as they head for warmer climes during the winter months.
Whistling whimbrel take the night flight south
Country Sights and Sounds
John Shelley
Old Whistlewings the Whimbrel flew ahead of the flock, his broken primaries noisily shearing the east wind that had been threatening to blow us off the lake. He gave a few plaintive calls, higher pitched than those of the curlew that we used to hear, and rather abbreviated, and then flew on rasping wings to find comfort on the cold shore.
His family were a minute behind him. Their voices came to our ears while they were still beyond the trees; the eerie sound of aerial hounds whimpering at the heels of their quarry. Bishop Mant had them ‘Shouting loud to warn their comrades of the way’. he called them ‘Deep-mouthed hounds raised in full cry… clamouring for their evening meal’.
Whimbrel, together with curlew, geese and many other birds that fly at night, are sometimes referred to as the Seven Whistlers, a supernatural lot that can somehow presage harm to those hearing them. One tale has them as seven birds, six of which are searching for the lost seventh. When he is finally found the world will come to its end.
There were fully 30 whistlers that night, and more after them. The 30 flew overhead in a long, raggy flock, all calling together as this one leg of their long journey was completed. Others arrived in twos and threes. I had meant to count them all if I could, but there was too much else going on. With the boat being blown broadside into the reeds while that elusive last trout of the season stayed just out of reach.
The whimbrel flock are on their way to the south of Spain or perhaps to some part of the African coast where they will enjoy the winter sun. They should be there in little more than a week and we shall see them no more until the end of March, when we hope to meet up with them again, midway through the return journey. I think these birds nest in Iceland or some part of Scandinavia, although a small few have recently colonised parts of the Shetland and Orkney Islands – it might not make any difference to the World Plan of the Ages, but I would somehow like to know.
And I’m sure somebody, somewhere, has the means of knowing. These birds have been subject to a number of studies already and are providing us with fascinating information. One tagged North American whimbrel covered 3,500 miles in just five days, doing so without stopping to rest or feed. Two more tagged birds were tracked from sub-Arctic Canada to the French jurisdiction of Guadeloupe, where they were shot by hunters. Other research is ongoing.
As for me, I am no expert. I still get confused between whimbrel and curlew, although, as my bird-watching friend says, if we see them they are whimbrel, and if we don’t then they might be curlew. What he means is that curlew have become so scarce that, apart from the few birds that feed along the coast, we hardly ever encounter them any more. The International Union for the Conservation of Nature has the curlew Red Listed, with a ‘moderately rapid global decline’ in numbers that is reflected in the complete disappearance of our local breeding population.
The whimbrel, on the other hand, finds itself on the rapidly shrinking list of ‘Species of Least Concern’, with a large population present over a much of the globe – an enviable situation in our modern world.
In practical terms, while the two species bear some resemblance to each other, the whimbrel is markedly smaller than its curlew cousin. It has shorter legs and a proportionately smaller bill as well, one that fits its face. The bill of the curlew always looks impossibly long. If we are still unsure which bird we are looking at, the curlew has a plain face while the whimbrel has a dark eye stripe and other facial markings.
It was just one year ago that Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht Jimmy Deenihan placed a ban on the shooting of curlew in Ireland, although many gun clubs had already asked their members to observe a voluntary moratorium. For some reason the whimbrel has never been considered a sporting shot here, although we can be sure that when pressed to it certain country gentlemen would not shy from taking one for the pot.
The truth is that we need Old Whistlewings and his family alive.
