Bird Sightings: Dunlin

thewesternisles.co.uk

Wildlife Forum NEW Hebrides bird sightings Bird pictures A - Z Bird pictures: thumbnails Bird ringing Seal and dolphin rescue Difference dolphin porpoise Seal pups Bottlenose dolphin A dolphin rescue BDMLR

Overview Flowering now A - Z wildflowers White wildflowers Yellow wildflowers Pink wildflowers Purple - blue flowers Orchid notes

Stornoway Arch Project June garden

Websites directory Featured sites: Hebridean Baskets Artist Wille Fulton Stornoway Arch Project

Bird Sightings : Hebrides : Dunlin

Dunlin (Tang Snipe in Shetland, or in Orkney and Shetland Plover's Page)

Calidris alpina
Gaelic: Gille-feadag, Gràilig

Photograph © Debbie Bozkurt
Balinvanich beach - Isle of Benbecula - Outer Hebrides (Western Isles)
30th September, 2006

Winter Visitor, Resident, and a Passage Migrant,

17 - 21 cm wader (Approximately the size of a starling)
Fairly long dark bill slightly decurved (bending downwards)
Often in large flocks in Winter - said to be sometimes thousands strong!

Black belly-patch in summer.
Sturdy black legs.
The most common wader on our beaches in Winter.

Breeds in the Western Isles on damp grassy machair, and likes altars areas too.
Our population of 350+ pairs is of national importance. (UK 9150 - 9900 pairs)

The name Plover's Page comes from occasional observations of a dunlin following a golden plover, greenshank or dotterel, and echoing the bird's movements.

(Similar to a Little Stint and a Curlew Sandpiper, both of which we occasionally get, but the Dunlin is much more numerous)

Two or more dunlin are called a fling.

Other local bird photographs

Debbie's online photo album

back to page top

Home • Contact Webmaster • Advertising