Enormous flock of declining shorebird discovered in South Carolina

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IMAGE: Whimbrel are large, striking shorebirds known for their downcurved bills, which are ideally adapted to plucking fiddler crabs from muddy burrows.
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Credit: Matt Aeberhard/Cornell Lab of Ornithology
CHARLESTON, S.C. (June 15, 2021) - It's not every day that someone discovers a new-to-science bird migration spectacle. It's even more unexpected that such an encounter - in this case, tens of thousands of shorebirds gathering during their annual journey north - would be just a stone's throw from a metropolitan area. But two years ago, that's exactly what happened in coastal South Carolina.
In May 2019, South Carolina Department of Natural Resources (SCDNR) biologist Felicia Sanders and a team of researchers confirmed that approximately 20,000 whimbrel were roosting at night on a small island during their spring migration. The team documented similar numbers again in 2020. This single flock includes nearly half of the declining shorebird's estimated eastern population: a staggering spectacle hiding in plain sight. The findings were recently published in the peer-reviewed scientific journal

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