Dunlin

Voice

A rasping, slightly nasal and downslurred kreeep, which from a rising flock becomes a hissing chorus. That grating timbre is the best separation from the clear call of Sanderling and the full chirrup of Curlew Sandpiper. Heard all year, and at night over inland areas on migration too.

Identification

Stocky and slightly hunched, with black legs and a black bill that droops gently towards the tip. Breeding birds have rufous-scaled upperparts and a large black belly patch that no other European sandpiper shows. In winter it is plain grey-brown above with a finely streaked grey breast and white belly. In flight, a narrow white wingbar and a dark central stripe down rump and tail, with white sides.

Confusion species

Curlew Sandpiper is longer-legged and longer-billed, with an evenly curved bill and, decisively, an all-white rump. Sanderling in winter is far whiter, shorter-billed, with a black shoulder patch and a broad wingbar. Little Stint and Temminck's Stint are obviously smaller, with short straight bills.

Habitat

Outside the breeding season the mudflat bird par excellence: it feeds in dense, fast-moving groups on soft silt, in shallow pools and along saltmarsh creeks, the bill working the mud like a sewing machine. Breeds on wet saltmarsh, blanket bog and tundra with short grass and sedge. Roosts in compact flocks on sandbanks.

Range and movements

Breeds from Iceland and Scandinavia far into Siberia, plus isolated colonies on Baltic and North Sea saltmarshes; only a handful of pairs remain in the Netherlands, on the Wadden islands. As passage migrant and winter visitor it is the most numerous wader of the Wadden Sea and the Delta. The Ebro delta, Doñana and the Bay of Cádiz also hold large winter numbers.

• Resident
• Breeding (summer)
• Winter
• Passage
• Migration direction
• dark = core range, pale = thinly spread

Where and when to look

Go to a high-tide roost on Texel, Ameland or in the Delta in January and be there well before high water. The big flocks wheel over the flats, alternating white underparts and dark backs. Then take your time over the settled flock: among thousands of Dunlin there is almost always a Knot or something rarer.

Conservation status

In western Europe the breeding population is falling fast through drainage, rank saltmarsh vegetation and bog damage, and as a Dutch breeding bird the species is on the point of disappearing. As a winter visitor it stays numerous, but numbers along the East Atlantic flyway are dropping. Subsidence, shellfish fisheries and disturbance on the flats weigh heaviest.