Calidris alpina
Silhouette: Edwin Price · PhyloPic
In 3 days ~90% in a week >90%
The dunlin (Calidris alpina) is a small wader in the genus Calidris. The English name is a dialect form of "dunling", first recorded in 1531–1532. It derives from dun, "dull brown", with the suffix -ling, meaning a person or thing with the given quality.
It is a circumpolar breeder in Arctic or subarctic regions. Birds that breed in western Europe are short-distance migrants largely staying on western and southern European and northwest African coasts; those breeding in far northern Europe and Asia are long-distance migrants, wintering south to Africa, southeast and west Asia. Birds that breed in Alaska and the Canadian Arctic migrate short distances to the Pacific and Atlantic coasts of North America, although those nesting in northern Alaska overwinter in Asia.
The dunlin was formally described by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in 1758 in the tenth edition of his Systema Naturae under the binomial name Tringa alpina. Linnaeus specified the location as Lapland. This species was formerly placed (with the other "stints") by some American authors in the genus Erolia, but is now placed with 23 other sandpipers in the genus Calidris that was introduced in 1804 by the...
| # | City | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Liverpool | 🇬🇧 United Kingdom | |
| 2 | Kuwait City | 🇰🇼 Kuwait | |
| 3 | Manama | 🇧🇭 Bahrain | |
| 4 | Quanzhou | 🇨🇳 China | |
| 5 | Dublin | 🇮🇪 Ireland | |
| 6 | Dammam | 🇸🇦 Saudi Arabia | |
| 7 | Porto | 🇵🇹 Portugal | |
| 8 | Helsinki | 🇫🇮 Finland | |
| 9 | San Francisco | 🇺🇸 United States | |
| 10 | Karachi | 🇵🇰 Pakistan |
| # | Zoo / Centre | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | National Zoological Park | 🇺🇸 United States | |
| 2 | Zoo Pilsen | 🇨🇿 Czechia | |
| 3 | Monterey Bay Aquarium | 🇺🇸 United States | |
| 4 | Ralph Perkins II Wildlife Center and Woods Garden | 🇺🇸 United States |
Likely
About 50% of wildlife watchers report a Dunlin sighting in Djoudj National Bird Sanctuary on a given day, based on 73 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data from 2019 to 2026. It is the 53rd most-seen of the 173 birds we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to about 90%, and over a week to over 90%, if each day is a fresh chance.
January
In that month about 60% of wildlife watchers report a Dunlin in Djoudj National Bird Sanctuary on a given day, against about 30% in November, the lowest month. That is one of Djoudj National Bird Sanctuary's driest months, with almost no rain against 55 mm in August. May to October have too few records to rate.
Between 1 and 4 pm
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Dunlin sightings with a recorded time, and about 8 in 10 of them come between 6 am and 6 pm: it is a daytime animal.
Yes
Of the 35 parks where we can rate Dunlin sightings, Djoudj National Bird Sanctuary has the highest daily chance: about 50%. Next come Wadden Sea National Park (Germany, about 40%) and Doñana National Park (Spain, about 30%). All parks ranked.
Same genus: Calidris
The closest relatives of the Dunlin that you can see in Djoudj National Bird Sanctuary (genus Calidris, Calidris Sandpipers) are Little Stint (about 70%), Ruff (about 60%) and Curlew Sandpiper (about 30%), with each one's daily chance of a sighting.
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Dunlin is recorded against all the birds logged in Djoudj National Bird Sanctuary (73 verified sightings from 2019 to 2026), calibrated against known sighting rates. Figures are rounded to the nearest 10% because citizen-science data supports honest approximations, not decimals, and months with records from fewer than five people show "—". How it works.
