Calidris alpina
Silhouette: Edwin Price · PhyloPic
In 3 days ~40% in a week ~70%
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... Wikipedia →
| # | 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 |
Possible
About 20% of wildlife watchers report a Dunlin sighting in Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge on a given day, based on 1,673 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data from 2019 to 2026. It is the 71st most-seen of the 279 birds we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to about 40%, and over a week to about 70%, if each day is a fresh chance.
February and December
In those months about 30% of wildlife watchers report a Dunlin in Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge on a given day, against under 5% in May to October, the lowest months. Those are among Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge's driest months, with about 70 mm of rain a month against 210 mm in September.
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.
8th of 32
Of the 32 parks where we can rate Dunlin sightings, Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge ranks 8th at about 20%. The best odds are in Wadden Sea National Park (Germany, about 40%), Doñana National Park (Spain, about 30%) and Kiskunság National Park (Hungary, about 20%). All parks ranked.
Same genus: Calidris
The closest relatives of the Dunlin that you can see in Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge (genus Calidris, Calidris Sandpipers) are Sanderling (about 20%) and Least Sandpiper (about 20%), 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 Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge (1,673 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.
