sgbeachbum: lone whimlew @ Semakau North

It was a very windy day and there were 4 grey herons, a great-billed heron, one common sandpiper, two white-bellied sea eagles and a brahminy kite at the shore at Pulau Semakau facing Pulau Bukom. However, there was also another visitor...with a long downward curled bill. This was too long for a whimbrel or was it not?

lone whimlew @ Pulau Semakau - 24Jan2016 from SgBeachBum on Vimeo.

This bird seemed to have a longer bill than what a whimbrel would have. However, this BTO clip mentions that the bill length itself is not a good feature to base an ID on as the 'bill length in both species varies with sex and age'.

It also looked bigger than a whimbrel although it was difficult to give the bird a proper sense of scale as there were no other whimbrels (or other birds) near it on the shore. Some parts of the clip show it to have a rather long neck....longer than what i think a whimbrel would normally have. Its head however had the dark crown stripes which Whimbrels have on top of their heads and also a dark eye stripe. These are more indicative that the bird was a Whimbrel.

Sadly, i was not able to listen to the calls made by this bird as it was quiet during the period of observation.

I'll just call it a "whimlew" until i can get a confirmation from a more experienced birder.

Update 1 : the weight of initial opinion was that this bird is an eurasian curlew. However, some others have commented that this was a whimbrel.

Update 2 : after more consideration, due to the prescence of the dark crown stripes on its head, this bird should be a whimbrel.