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Priorities for Future Research
Comprehensive spring surveys of coastal mid-Atlantic and Pacific states, and of California Central Valley (the latter has had the highest counts in North America in recent years), are needed for estimates of population sizes and trends, as well as to determine important staging areas (Harrington and Page 1991). Breeding biology, especially factors affecting nest success, needs study over much of the range, especially in the western population. Numbers or densities over most of the breeding range have not been determined. Other areas where knowledge is scarce include growth and development of young, fledging success, timing and energetics of molt and migration, extent of mixing of western and eastern populations, and relationship between winter feeding territoriality and abundance of food resources. Vocalizations during migration and in wintering areas have not been analyzed.
Skeel, Margaret A. and Elizabeth P. Mallory. 1996. Whimbrel (Numenius phaeopus), The Birds of North America Online (A. Poole, Ed.). Ithaca: Cornell Lab of Ornithology; Retrieved from the Birds of North America Online: http://bna.birds.cornell.edu/bna/species/219
