Mr Whimbrel, don’t play with your food 2/6/25
As I mentioned in my earlier Sanderling post, I had been wondering where the Whimbrel and Sanderlings have been, until I found them at Ft Funston while looking for Gray Whales and Bottlenose Dolphins. I’m not sure why they haven’t been gracing our Pacifica beaches this season - I normally see quite a few of them. But I’m guessing it has at least something to do with the food.
I was photographing this Whimbrel catch a sand crab and then he dropped it. I initially chalked it up to a mistake. But after retrieving it, he dropped it at least 4 more times and picked it back up. Eventually I figured out he was tearing the legs off. I’ve seen other birds do that with crustaceans but I don’t recall seeing a Whimbrel do it. But that might be because most of the time I see a Whimbrel with a sand crab, there’s another Whimbrel trying to take it away, so they may just not have the luxury of time to remove the legs. This Whimbrel was being left alone and he spent a good amount of time tearing all the legs off before eating it. This is a shortened version of the sequence.
