Whimbrel (Numenius phaeopus) - BirdLife species factsheet

Whimbrel Numenius phaeopus

Current view: Data table and detailed info

Taxonomy

Taxonomic source(s)
AERC TAC. 2003. AERC TAC Checklist of bird taxa occurring in Western Palearctic region, 15th Draft. Available at: http://www.aerc.eu/DOCS/Bird_taxa_of_the_WP15.xls.
Christidis, L. and Boles, W.E. 2008. Systematics and Taxonomy of Australian Birds. CSIRO Publishing, Collingwood, Australia.
Cramp, S. and Simmons, K.E.L. (eds). 1977-1994. Handbook of the birds of Europe, the Middle East and Africa. The birds of the western Palearctic. Oxford University Press, Oxford.
del Hoyo, J., Collar, N.J., Christie, D.A., Elliott, A. and Fishpool, L.D.C. 2014. HBW and BirdLife International Illustrated Checklist of the Birds of the World. Volume 1: Non-passerines. Lynx Edicions BirdLife International, Barcelona, Spain and Cambridge, UK.
SACC. 2005 and updates. A classification of the bird species of South America. Available at: https://www.museum.lsu.edu/~Remsen/SACCBaseline.htm.
Turbott, E.G. 1990. Checklist of the Birds of New Zealand. Ornithological Society of New Zealand, Wellington.

IUCN Red List criteria met and history

Red List criteria met

Critically Endangered	Endangered	Vulnerable
-	-	-

Red List history

Year	Category	Criteria
2024	Least Concern
2016	Least Concern
2012	Least Concern
2009	Least Concern
2008	Least Concern
2004	Least Concern
2000	Lower Risk/Least Concern
1994	Lower Risk/Least Concern
1988	Lower Risk/Least Concern

Species attributes

Migratory status	full migrant	Forest dependency	low
Land-mass type		Average mass	-

Range

	Estimate	Data quality
Extent of Occurrence (breeding/resident)	31,100,000 km²	medium
Extent of Occurrence (non-breeding)	319,000,000 km²	medium
Severely fragmented?	no	-

Population

	Estimate	Data quality	Derivation	Year of estimate
Population size	1800000-2650000 mature individuals	good	estimated	2023
Population trend	decreasing	-	suspected	-
Generation length	7.23 years	-	-	-

Population justification: The estimated population size of this species is quite large, ranging between 1,800,000 to 2,650,000 individuals (Wetlands International 2023).

Trend justification: Considering its population trend in North America over three generations (c. 22 years), the data presented in Smith et al. (2023) indicate a rapid decline of c. 70% along Atlantic coastline migration sites. Similarly, data from the North American Pacific coast suggest an annual population change of -3.7% (-8.4 to +1%) (Migratory Shorebirds Project, unpubl. data). Both of these sources suggest declines much steeper than the c. 23% decline reported by the Breeding Bird Survey (Ziolkowski et al. 2022), while numbers recorded by the Christmas Bird Count have remained broadly stable (Meehan et al. 2022). However, these North American sources relate to just two of the nine flyway populations globally, and together represent <5% of the global total (Wetlands International 2023). Elsewhere, the three large flyway populations that breed in Iceland, northern Europe and western Siberia and winter in Africa are all considered to be stable (van Roomen et al. 2022, Wetlands International 2023). Together these populations represent c. 90% of the global total, and therefore while a global decline is precautionarily suspected, it is probably occurring at only a very slow rate.

Country/territory distribution

Country/Territory	Presence	Origin	Resident	Breeding visitor	Non-breeding visitor	Passage migrant
Afghanistan	extant	vagrant
Albania	extant	native				yes
Algeria	extant	native
American Samoa	extant	native
Angola	extant	native
Anguilla (to UK)	extant	native
Antigua and Barbuda	extant	native
Argentina	extant	native
Armenia	extant	native
Aruba (to Netherlands)	extant	native
Australia	extant	native
Austria	extant	native
Azerbaijan	extant	native				yes
Bahamas	extant	native
Bahrain	extant	native			yes	yes
Bangladesh	extant	native
Barbados	extant	native
Belarus	extant	native		yes
Belgium	extant	native				yes
Belize	extant	native			yes
Benin	extant	native
Bermuda (to UK)	extant	native
Bhutan	extant	native
Bolivia	extant	native
Bonaire, Sint Eustatius and Saba (to Netherlands)	extant	native			yes
Bosnia and Herzegovina	extant	native
Botswana	extant	native
Brazil	extant	native
British Indian Ocean Territory	extant	native
Brunei	extant	native
Bulgaria	extant	native			yes
Burkina Faso	extant	vagrant
Burundi	extant	native
Cambodia	extant	native
Cameroon	extant	native
Canada	extant	native				yes
Cape Verde	extant	native
Cayman Islands (to UK)	extant	native
Chile	extant	native			yes
China (mainland)	extant	native
Christmas Island (to Australia)	extant	native
Cocos (Keeling) Islands (to Australia)	extant	native
Colombia	extant	native
Comoros	extant	native
Congo	extant	native
Congo, The Democratic Republic of the	extant	native
Costa Rica	extant	native			yes
Côte d'Ivoire	extant	native
Croatia	extant	native
Cuba	extant	native
Curaçao (to Netherlands)	extant	native			yes
Cyprus	extant	native				yes
Czechia	extant	native
Denmark	extant	native				yes
Djibouti	extant	native
Dominica	extant	native
Dominican Republic	extant	native
Ecuador	extant	native			yes
Egypt	extant	native
El Salvador	extant	native
Equatorial Guinea	extant	native
Eritrea	extant	native
Estonia	extant	native		yes
Ethiopia	extant	native
Falkland Islands (Malvinas)	extant	native
Faroe Islands (to Denmark)	extant	native		yes
Fiji	extant	native				yes
Finland	extant	native		yes		yes
France	extant	native			yes	yes
French Guiana	extant	native
French Southern Territories	extant	vagrant
Gabon	extant	native
Gambia	extant	native
Georgia	extant	native
Germany	extant	native			yes	yes
Ghana	extant	native
Gibraltar (to UK)	extant	native			yes
Greece	extant	native			yes	yes
Greenland (to Denmark)	extant	native		yes
Grenada	extant	vagrant
Guadeloupe (to France)	extant	native				yes
Guam (to USA)	extant	native			yes
Guatemala	extant	native
Guinea	extant	native
Guinea-Bissau	extant	native
Guyana	extant	native
Haiti	extant	native
Honduras	extant	native
Hong Kong (China)	extant	native
Hungary	extant	native				yes
Iceland	extant	native		yes
India	extant	native
Indonesia	extant	native
Iran, Islamic Republic of	extant	native			yes	yes
Iraq	extant	native				yes
Ireland	extant	native				yes
Israel	extant	native
Italy	extant	native			yes
Jamaica	extant	native
Japan	extant	native
Jordan	extant	vagrant
Kazakhstan	extant	native
Kenya	extant	native
Kiribati	extant	native
Kuwait	extant	native			yes	yes
Kyrgyzstan	extant	native
Latvia	extant	native		yes
Lebanon	extant	native				yes
Liberia	extant	native
Libya	extant	native
Liechtenstein	extant	vagrant
Luxembourg	extant	native
Macao (China)	extant	native
Madagascar	extant	native
Malawi	extant	native
Malaysia	extant	native			yes
Maldives	extant	native
Mali	extant	native
Malta	extant	native
Marshall Islands	extant	native			yes
Martinique (to France)	extant	native
Mauritania	extant	native
Mauritius	extant	native
Mayotte (to France)	extant	native
Mexico	extant	native
Micronesia, Federated States of	extant	native			yes
Moldova	extant	native
Mongolia	extant	native
Montenegro	extant	native
Montserrat (to UK)	extant	native
Morocco	extant	native
Mozambique	extant	native
Myanmar	extant	native
Namibia	extant	native
Nauru	extant	native			yes
Nepal	extant	native
Netherlands	extant	native
New Caledonia (to France)	extant	native
New Zealand	extant	native
Nicaragua	extant	native
Nigeria	extant	native
Norfolk Island (to Australia)	extant	native			yes
North Korea	extant	native
North Macedonia	extant	native			yes
Northern Mariana Islands (to USA)	extant	native			yes
Norway	extant	native		yes
Oman	extant	native			yes	yes
Pakistan	extant	native
Palau	extant	native			yes
Palestine	extant	native			yes	yes
Panama	extant	native
Papua New Guinea	extant	native
Peru	extant	native
Philippines	extant	native
Poland	extant	native				yes
Portugal	extant	native			yes
Puerto Rico (to USA)	extant	native
Qatar	extant	native				yes
Réunion (to France)	extant	native
Romania	extant	native				yes
Russia	extant	native	yes
Russia (Asian)	extant	native		yes
Russia (Central Asian)	extant	native		yes		yes
Russia (European)	extant	native		yes
Rwanda	extant	native
Samoa	extant	native
São Tomé e Príncipe	extant	native
Saudi Arabia	extant	native			yes	yes
Senegal	extant	native
Serbia	extant	native
Seychelles	extant	native
Sierra Leone	extant	native
Singapore	extant	native
Slovakia	extant	native
Slovenia	extant	vagrant
Solomon Islands	extant	native
Somalia	extant	native
South Africa	extant	native
South Georgia & the South Sandwich Islands	extant	native
South Korea	extant	native
Spain	extant	native			yes
Sri Lanka	extant	native
St Barthelemy (to France)	extant	native
St Kitts and Nevis	extant	native
St Lucia	extant	native
St Pierre and Miquelon (to France)	extant	native				yes
St Vincent and the Grenadines	extant	native
Sudan	extant	native			yes
Suriname	extant	native
Svalbard and Jan Mayen Islands (to Norway)	extant	native
Sweden	extant	native		yes
Switzerland	extant	native
Syria	extant	native				yes
Taiwan, China	extant	native
Tajikistan	extant	vagrant
Tanzania	extant	native
Thailand	extant	native
Timor-Leste	extant	native			yes	yes
Togo	extant	native
Trinidad and Tobago	extant	native				yes
Tunisia	extant	native
Türkiye	extant	native			yes
Turkmenistan	extant	native
Turks and Caicos Islands (to UK)	extant	native
Tuvalu	extant	native
Uganda	extant	native
Ukraine	extant	native				yes
United Arab Emirates	extant	native			yes	yes
United Kingdom	extant	native	yes			yes
Uruguay	extant	native			yes
USA	extant	native		yes
Uzbekistan	extant	native
Vanuatu	extant	native
Venezuela	extant	native
Vietnam	extant	native
Virgin Islands (to UK)	extant	vagrant
Virgin Islands (to USA)	extant	vagrant
Western Sahara	extant	native
Yemen	extant	native			yes	yes
Zambia	extant	native
Zimbabwe	extant	native

Important Bird and Biodiversity Areas (IBA)

Country/Territory	IBA Name
Canada	Lagune du Havre aux Basques et plage de l'Ouest
Canada	Presqu'ile Provincial Park
Chile	Bahía de Quinchao
Chile	Desembocadura del Río Chamiza,Coihuin-Pelluco
Chile	Desembocadura del Río Lluta
Chile	Desembocadura del Río Maipo
Chile	Estero Mantagua y Desembocadura del Río Aconcagua
Chile	Estuario de Maullín y Cerro Amortajado
Chile	Humedal-Marisma Rocuant Andalién
Chile	Playa Laraquete
Chile	Santuario de las Aves Bahía de Caulín
Chile	Sistema Quetalmahue, Quilo y Mar Brava
China (mainland)	Shuangtai (Shuangtaizi) Estuary and Inner Gulf of Liaodong
China (mainland)	Wenzhou Wan
Colombia	Parque Nacional Natural Sanquianga
Costa Rica	Nicoya Gulf mangroves and coastal areas
Costa Rica	Nicoya Peninsula
Ecuador	Refugio de Vida Silvestre Isla Corazón e Isla Fragata
Faroe Islands (to Denmark)	Fugloy
Faroe Islands (to Denmark)	Skúvoy
Faroe Islands (to Denmark)	Vøtnini á Sandoy (Lakes of Sandoy)
Finland	Kevo
Finland	Koitajoki area
Finland	Lemmenjoki-Hammastunturi-Pulju
Finland	Litokaira
Finland	Maltio fjelds
Finland	Pallas and Ylläs fjelds
Finland	Patvinsuo National Park
Finland	Pomokaira-Koitelaiskaira
Finland	Saariselkä and Koilliskaira
Finland	Värriö-Tuntsa
France	Marais et forêt d'Olonne
France	Marais poitevin et baie de l'Aiguillon
French Guiana	Ile de Cayenne
French Guiana	Littoral
French Guiana	Littoral Kourou
French Guiana	Littoral Macouria
French Guiana	Littoral Sinnamary
French Guiana	Plaine Kaw et Pointe Béhague
Guinea-Bissau	Arquipélago dos Bijagós
Guinea-Bissau	Rio Tombali, Rio Cumbijã and Ilha de Melo
Iceland	Markarfljotsaurar
Iran, Islamic Republic of	Anzali Mordab complex
Iran, Islamic Republic of	Miankaleh Peninsula and Gorgan Bay
Iran, Islamic Republic of	South Caspian shore, from Astara to Gomishan
Japan	Hakata bay
Japan	Hikawa estuary, Shiranui
Japan	Inner Ariake bay
Japan	Inner Tokyo bay
Japan	Kamogawa estuary
Japan	Kumakawa estuary
Japan	Kumozugawa, Atagogawa and Kongogawa estuaries
Japan	Lakes Komuke and Shibunotsunai
Japan	Miyako islands
Japan	Nakatsu and Usa tidal flats
Japan	Shiokawa tidal flat
Japan	Shirakawa estuary
Japan	Sone tidal flat
Japan	Tonegawa floodplain
Malaysia	Matang coast
Malaysia	North-central Selangor coast
Mauritania	Banc d'Arguin National Park
Mexico	Complejo Lagunar Ojo de Liebre
Oman	Barr al Hikman
Oman	Masirah island
Panama	Chimán Wetlands
Panama	Ensenada de Garachiné Wetlands
Panama	Upper Bay of Panamá
Romania	Câmpia Crişurilor
Russia (Asian)	Babushkina and Kekurnyy Gulfs
Russia (Asian)	Konstantin and Tugur bays
Russia (Asian)	Malkachan bay
Russia (Asian)	Moroshechnaya River
Russia (Asian)	Ola lagoon
Russia (European)	Bylinskaya
Russia (European)	Mouth of Svir river
Russia (European)	Olonets plain
Russia (European)	Polisto-Lovatskaya mire system
Russia (European)	Ul'skoye bog
Russia (European)	Watershead of Kama and Porysh rivers
Saudi Arabia	Tarut Bay
South Korea	Asan Bay (including Asan-ho lake and Sapgyo-ho lake)
South Korea	Baeksu tidal flat
South Korea	Dongjin estuary
South Korea	Mangyeong estuary
South Korea	Namyang Bay
South Korea	Tidal flat area of Yeongjong-do island
Sweden	Lake Ånn – Storlien
Sweden	Vindel Mountains (including Lake Tärna)
Trinidad and Tobago	West Coast Mudflats
United Kingdom	Blackpark and Gutcher, Yell
United Kingdom	Crussa Field and the Heogs
United Kingdom	Hill of Colvadale and Sobul
United Kingdom	Moorland Areas, Central Shetland
USA	Barrier Island/Lagoon System
USA	Imperial Valley
Yemen	Al-'Urj

Habitats & altitude

Habitat (level 1)	Habitat (level 2)	Importance	Occurrence
Artificial/Aquatic & Marine	Artificial/Aquatic - Seasonally Flooded Agricultural Land	suitable	non-breeding
Forest	Boreal	suitable	breeding
Forest	Subtropical/Tropical Mangrove Vegetation Above High Tide Level	suitable	non-breeding
Grassland	Subtropical/Tropical Seasonally Wet/Flooded	suitable	non-breeding
Grassland	Tundra	suitable	breeding
Marine Coastal/Supratidal	Coastal Brackish/Saline Lagoons/Marine Lakes	suitable	non-breeding
Marine Coastal/Supratidal	Coastal Freshwater Lakes	suitable	non-breeding
Marine Intertidal	Mud Flats and Salt Flats	suitable	non-breeding
Marine Intertidal	Rocky Shoreline	suitable	non-breeding
Marine Intertidal	Tidepools	suitable	non-breeding
Marine Neritic	Coral Reef - Back Slope	suitable	non-breeding
Marine Neritic	Coral Reef - Foreslope (Outer Reef Slope)	suitable	non-breeding
Marine Neritic	Coral Reef - Inter-Reef Rubble Substrate	suitable	non-breeding
Marine Neritic	Coral Reef - Inter-Reef Soft Substrate	suitable	non-breeding
Marine Neritic	Coral Reef - Lagoon	suitable	non-breeding
Marine Neritic	Coral Reef - Outer Reef Channel	suitable	non-breeding
Marine Neritic	Estuaries	suitable	non-breeding
Shrubland	Boreal	suitable	breeding
Wetlands (inland)	Permanent Freshwater Lakes (over 8ha)	suitable	non-breeding
Wetlands (inland)	Permanent Rivers/Streams/Creeks (includes waterfalls)	suitable	non-breeding
Wetlands (inland)	Seasonal/Intermittent Freshwater Lakes (over 8ha)	suitable	non-breeding
Altitude		Occasional altitudinal limits

Threats & impact

Threat (level 1)

Threat (level 2)

Impact and Stresses

Climate change & severe weather

Habitat shifting & alteration

Timing

Scope

Severity

Impact

Future

Whole (>90%)

Unknown

Stresses
Indirect ecosystem effects, Ecosystem degradation

Utilisation

Purpose	Scale
Food - human	subsistence, national
Sport hunting/specimen collecting	subsistence, national

Recommended citation
BirdLife International (2024) Species factsheet: Whimbrel Numenius phaeopus. Downloaded from https://datazone.birdlife.org/species/factsheet/whimbrel-numenius-phaeopus on 24/11/2024.
Recommended citation for factsheets for more than one species: BirdLife International (2024) IUCN Red List for birds. Downloaded from https://datazone.birdlife.org/species/search on 24/11/2024.