This morning, while visiting Eagle Bluffs Conservation Area, a friend and I encountered a lone dunlin, feeding with least sandpipers and lesser yellowlegs along the central distribution channel. Medium-sized sandpipers, dunlin have a slight droop at the tip of their bill; they are most easily identified in spring and summer, when their back is rust-colored and they sport a black patch on their abdomen.
Dunlin breed across the Arctic tundra and winter along both coasts of North America, from Southeast Alaska and New England to Mexico. Many migrate via the inland flyways of the Continent, stopping to rest and feed in wetlands, on flooded fields or along the edge of lakes, ponds and rivers. There they feast on a wide variety of terrestrial and aquatic invertebrates.
Dunlin are especially hardy shorebirds, wintering farther north than most species and often migrating through the Heartland as late as November. Though usually seen in flocks (often quite large), this morning's loner seemed quite content to hang out with his cousins.
