Whimbrel / Regenwulp, Krombek

Whimbrel (Numenius phaeopus)

Pictures (click on them to enlarge)
© Dirk-Jan Hoek (www.tapioca.nl)	© Dominiek Plouvier	© Carl Beel
© Barbara Olmtak	© Ton Plug	Nieuwe Nickerie LBB © Eke van Batenburg
© Erik Toorman	© Dominiek Plouvier

Whimbrel: A common bird along the coast of Suriname and easy to recognise from a distance (long down-curved bill, striped head). They come from the north of Canada to spend the northern winter in a more warm environment. But some of them stay the whole year, there is enough food (crabs, shellfish) to be found in the mud along our coast. The maximum group recorded was a group of 150 in April 1980 at the mouth of the Coppename River by Ribot. Normal are groups of about ten birds and even more so solitary birds. For August to October Arie Spaans estimated a normal total number of several thousand for the whole of the coast of Suriname.
The nice photo of a flying whimbrel was made by Dirk-Jan Hoek (www.tapioca.nl) probably at Weg naar Zee in Suriname. The next one was made by Dominiek Plouvier in December 2007 in Suriname. And the third one was made by Carl Beel in the Bigi Pan area in February 2013.
Dominiek Plouvier made a video of a Whimbrel catching a crab.

Video (click the link or the 'play'-button to see)
Video recording of a Whimbrel © ;

Distribution

Each small square indicates the observation of at least one (group) of these birds, the medium ones at least four observations on different days and the largest ones ten or more. The color of each square indicates: blue for coastal area, yellow for savanna and red for rainforest.
Not all places in Suriname have been equally often visited by birders, so the distribution of the squares gives an indication of the whereabouts of the birds, but also of the birders. Some places deep in the south have no reported bird observations, by experienced birders, within 60 kilometer.

Abundance in different areas
coastal zone (blue dots on the map) :
northern savannas (yellow dots (in the north)) :
rainforest under 400 m (red dots) :
rainforest above 400 m (red dots) :
Sipaliwini savanna (yellow dots (in the south)) :
A blank is shown if not convincingly reported in the zone. Data interpreted by Arie Spaans, Otte Ottema and Jan Hein Ribot.

Names
Scientific name:	Numenius phaeopus
Order:	Charadriiformes
Family:	Scolopacidae, 25 in Suriname
Dutch:	Regenwulp, Krombek
English:	Whimbrel
Sranan ('Surinamese'):	Krombek
Guyana:
Papiamento:
Spanish (Venezuela):	Chorlo real
Portugese (Brazil):	Maçaricão
Arowak:
Carib:
French:	Courlis corlieu

Observations through the year	Observations of breeding through the year

The 331 reported observations of this bird in Suriname, mainly for the last 50 years up to 2018, have been grouped by month. More birds on one day are counted as one observation. Of course, if the graph should depict the total number of birds seen, the differences between the months could be much more pronounced.	The reported breeding observations of this bird in Suriname. Most observations are about nest with eggs, some about fledglings, or feeding at a nest or the building of a nest. Of the about 5000 nests and eggs found for all species together, about 1/3 comes from the egg collection of Penard between 1896 and 1905. For some reason most collecting then was done in the first half of each year, so the shown distribution does not necessarily reflect the actual breeding preferences. The main dry season in Suriname is reckoned to be from half August to the end of November, the main wet season from half April to half August, but the the timing of begin and end does vary from year to year. Around March a second dry season often occurs.

Observations through the year

Observations of breeding through the year

The 331 reported observations of this bird in Suriname, mainly for the last 50 years up to 2018, have been grouped by month. More birds on one day are counted as one observation. Of course, if the graph should depict the total number of birds seen, the differences between the months could be much more pronounced.

The reported breeding observations of this bird in Suriname. Most observations are about nest with eggs, some about fledglings, or feeding at a nest or the building of a nest.

Of the about 5000 nests and eggs found for all species together, about 1/3 comes from the egg collection of Penard between 1896 and 1905. For some reason most collecting then was done in the first half of each year, so the shown distribution does not necessarily reflect the actual breeding preferences.
The main dry season in Suriname is reckoned to be from half August to the end of November, the main wet season from half April to half August, but the the timing of begin and end does vary from year to year. Around March a second dry season often occurs.

Last update: September 2024 by Jan Hein Ribot. Please mail your comments, photos to: jhribot ( residing at ) gmail (point!) com.
observations can be uploaded to suriname.observation.org or ebird.org ).