Habitat
In Prudhoe Bay, breeds on moist-wet tundra, often in areas with ponds, polygons, strangs (short, sinuous ridges), and recently formed landscapes, such as drained thaw lakes (D. M. pers. Comm. In Warnock and Gill 1996, Meehan 1986). Shoreline silt barrens important for post breeding birds (Andres 1989). On the Y-K Delta, breeds in coastal sedge graminoid meadows dominated by Carex ramenskii, C. deshampsioides, and C. rariflora, and having numerous shallow ponds and tidal distributaries (Holmes 1970). Post breeding birds found on unvegetated intertidal flats (Gill and Handel 1990).
References
Andres, B. A. 1989. Littoral zone use by post-breeding shorebirds on the Colville River delta, Alaska. Master’s thesis, Ohio State Univ., Columbus.
Gill, R. E. and C. M. Handel. 1990. The importance of subarctic intertidal habitats to shorebirds: a case study of the central Yukon-Kuskokwim delta, Alaska. Condor 92: 709-725.
Holmes, R. T. 1970. Differences in population density, territoriality, and food supply of Dunlin on arctic and subarctic tundra. Pp. 303-319 In: Animal populations in relation to their food resources (A. Watson, ed.). Oxford Univ. Press, Oxford.
Meehan, R. H. 1986. Impact of oilfield development on shorebirds, Prudhoe Bay, Alaska. Ph. D. diss., Univ. of Colorado, Boulder.
Warnock, N. D. and R. E. Gills. 1996. Dunlin (Calidris alpina). In The Birds of North America, Vol. 6, No. 203 (A. Poole and F. Gill, Eds.). Philadelphia: The Academy of Natural Sciences; Washington, D.C.: The American Ornithologists’ Union.
