Did you know some birds have a “home away from home” they visit every single year? This time of year, Seabrook Island is surrounded by whimbrels with their distinctive downward curving curlewed beak, but most of us rarely see them because they travel at dusk and pre-dawn.
Maina Handmaker’s recent study on Whimbrels reveals they are incredibly loyal to their vacation dining spots. While migrating, these birds don’t just land anywhere—they return to the exact same foraging patches year after year!
Key takeaways:
✨ Extreme Loyalty: When they return to a stopover site, their “home range” overlaps by a massive 70% with where they stayed the previous year.
✨ Personal Space: During the day, they stick to their own private feeding territories, rarely overlapping with others. Some of returning birds commute on a daily basis as far as Switzerland (SC), nearly 50 miles away.
✨ The Nightly Hub: Even though they feed alone, 10 to 20 thousand whimbrels gather at a single, massive roosting spot at night: Deveaux Bank, South Carolina. This tiny island is home to nearly half the entire Atlantic population during migration!
By returning to familiar ground, these birds save precious energy instead of hunting for new food sources. High-tech GPS tracking is showing us just how precise these incredible navigators really are!!
Submitted by Jeff Davis
Photos by Jeff Davis
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