Dunlin

The dunlin is a small wader in the genus Calidris, in the sandpiper family Scolopacidae, formally described by Carl Linnaeus in 1758 as Tringa alpina with Lapland as its type locality. It measures 16 to 20 centimeters in length with a 38 to 43 centimeter wingspan and 34 to 77 gram weight, and in breeding plumage shows a distinctive black belly that no other similar sized wader has, while non-breeding birds are greyish brown above and white below. The tip of its bill carries a soft covering filled with blood and nerve endings that forms a sensitive probe used to detect invertebrate prey in mud and sand. Dunlins are circumpolar breeders of Arctic and subarctic regions; western European birds are short-distance migrants remaining on western and southern European coasts, while far northern populations migrate long distances to Africa and Asia, and North American birds winter on the Pacific and Atlantic coasts. The IUCN classifies the species as Near Threatened, and the southern subspecies Calidris alpina schinzii has declined sharply, with Denmark recording only 95 pairs in 2021 against roughly 50,000 pairs a century earlier.