Dunlin

Along with Sanderlings and Purple Sandpipers, Dunlin are the shorebirds most likely to be seen in New Hampshire during the winter. They are the most adaptable of the three: co-occurring with Sanderlings on beaches and mudflats and with Purples on rocky shorelines and jetties. Nondescript in their gray and white non-breeding plumage, they are best identified in this season by their longer bill that droops slightly at the tip. When in mixed flocks they are darker (and smaller) than Sanderlings and paler than Purple Sandpipers. In late winter they begin to molt into their very distinctive breeding plumage, which includes a rusty brown back and black patch on the belly. This plumage is best seen in New Hampshire in May.

Dunlin nest in arctic tundra across the Northern Hemisphere, and their breeding biology has been studied extensively. Unlike many shorebirds they are monogamous, and both parents share in incubation and brood-rearing. Males develop a brood patch as females do and may even do the bulk of incubation in some cases. If eggs are lost to a predator they can begin re-nesting in as little as four days.

The subspecies of Dunlin that winters in the eastern United States breeds north and west of Hudson Bay in Canada. Other populations breed in Alaska and winter on the Pacific coast, while those that breed in Greenland migrate across the north Atlantic to Europe and northwest Africa. While some of these subspecies are declining, the one that visits New Hampshire appears stable, suggesting high variation in possible threats across this species’ extensive range.