While birding at the Marismas de Barbate, in southern Andalucía, Spain, with most of the birds some distance away, this Dunlin, Calidris alpina, flew in under my feet and immediately started feeding, apparently unaware, or at least unconcerned, about me standing only a few feet away from it clicking my camera.
Dunlins are circumpolar breeders, in the Arctic and sub-arctic species. Three races are found in the British Isles, at different times of year. Some breed in the far north of Scotland and in the Pennines in England, and parts of Wales. This subspecies, C. a. schinzii, also breeds in southeast Greenland, Iceland, Scandinavia & the Baltic, migrates south through Europe to winter in West Africa.
Another subspecies, C. a. arctica, breeds in north-east Greenland and stop as passage migrants to refuel on their migration to and from their wintering grounds in West Africa.
Another subspecies, the nominate C. a. alpina, (there are eleven subspecies of Dunlin), summers in northern Scandinavia and Russia and about half a million of them winter in Britain’s estuaries.
