Dunlin

There's been good numbers of Dunlin present on the Western Yar over the last week or so. Here on the West Wight they're really confiding and sometimes allow you to approach them to within just a few metres while they are feeding. They forage with a rapid up-and-down bill motion, well-described as stitching. For geeky Dunlin-dudes, an amazing study on the probing & pecking frequency of Dunlin feeding in Japan has been published here.

That's a bit high-brow for me, so I thought I'd share something completely different: a video of foraging Dunlin captured in Yarmouth Marina a few days ago with a very appropriate accompaniment from some work going on in the background (make sure you have your volume turned up!):