This large brown shorebird is the most wide-ranging of the curlew species.

It is distinctive, having contrasting light-brown and dark-brown head stripes and a long decurved bill that it uses to probe for food on coastal mud flats and beaches.

It is a common spring and fall migrant in coastal areas although it is also found, rarely, in small numbers inland as well. It is a rare spring migrant in the Willamette Valley with generally about one record annually, typically in late April or early May.

Hear the call of the Whimbrel

Photo by ©Keith Kohl, ODFW