Dunlin
Calidris alpina
Also known as: Lapland Dunlin
Habitat
Ground
Diet
Invertebrate
Active Time
Diurnal
Size
52 g
About This Species
A common but declining shorebird of tidal mudflats, estuaries, and wet grassland, most easily identified in breeding plumage by a black belly patch and rusty back, though winter birds are plainer gray-brown above and white below. Large, tightly packed flocks are a hallmark of the species outside the breeding season, wheeling together in synchronized flight over estuaries at high tide, while breeding birds are found on Arctic and subarctic tundra. Autumn and winter, when flocks gather on coastal mudflats to probe for invertebrates as the tide recedes, offer the most reliable viewing.
Ethical Viewing Guidelines
- As a Near Threatened species reliant on a shrinking network of estuary and tundra habitat, keeping well back from feeding or roosting flocks and using a scope rather than approaching across open mudflat is the more cautious choice here.
- Estuarine roosts are frequently designated protected sites in the UK and EU under wetland bird protections, and disturbing large roosting flocks can force repeated, energetically costly flights during a critical refueling period on migration.
- Viewing from a hide or the tideline edge, rather than walking out onto mudflats or through roost sites, is the safer general approach given the species' status and the vulnerability of high-tide roosts.
Seasonal Activity
2,825,365 sightings · 2000–2026
Citizen science records via GBIF
Classification
- Kingdom
- Animalia
- Phylum
- Chordata
- Class
- Aves
- Order
- Charadriiformes
- Family
- Scolopacidae
Traits
- Diet
- Invertebrate
- Foraging
- Ground
- Activity
- Diurnal
- Body mass
- 52 g
Photo
Wikimedia Commons / Wikimedia Commons
CC-BY-SA-4.0
Occurrence data from GBIF.