Calidris alpina
Dunlins are medium sized sandpipers with short necks, long drooping bills and black legs. In breeding plumage they have a black belly and red back and in nonbreeding plumage they are a dull brownish gray with a creamy white belly.
This Dunlin was just about finished molting into its breeding plumage and would have soon been on its way to the Arctic and sub-Arctic tundra to breed and raise its young.
This is a simple image of a bathing Dunlin from May of 2009 taken at Fort De Soto County Park that brings back wonderful memories for me.
I wanted to post a shorebird today that I haven't posted in a while so I picked this image where the late afternoon Dunlin gets the worm
Today I am focusing on older posts that have shorebirds in them starting with Black-bellied Plovers.
Dunlins are small shorebirds that are found in North America which exhibit remarkable differences between their breeding and nonbreeding plumages.
Wow, this is my 500th blog post and it has been great fun to share my images and the stories behind them. I thought I'd share a few images and bits about my thoughts on photography.
Dunlins exhibit a vast difference between nonbreeding and breeding plumage, so different that a novice birder might mistakenly believe that they were two different species.