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Dunlin

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Dunlin
Ceremraq

The Ceremraq brings back some powerful memories of my years out on the fringes of the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta. For this humble sandpiper is so much more than the sum of its parts, if you know what I mean. During late summer and early fall when Dunlins stage for migration, their flocks are so huge and perform such perfectly synchronized movements in the air that from a distance they look like swarms of insects. No one fully understands this phenomenon, but it is truly a wonder to behold.

In addition to the beauty of its collective flight pattern, the Dunlin's many names are also fascinating. Its common name is a shortened form of "dunling," a small dun-colored (brown) bird. Its scientific name, Calidris alpina, is a Greek-Latin combination, meaning "alpine speckled water bird," which indeed it is.

It has two Yupik names. The first and most common is "ceremraq," which relates to its song, a series of harsh rolling trills, jrrre jrre jrrrijijijijijiji jijrr jrrr. (The Yupik word, "ceryuq," by the way, describes the sound of breakers on the beach.) The second Yupik name, "cenairpak," means "big shore bird," (from "cena," for shore). The Western sandpiper has a similar name, "cenairaq," but isn't as large as the Dunlin, so doesn't take the "pak at the end.

Other English names for this sandpiper are: Black-bellied sandpiper; blackbreast; blackcrop; black-heart plover; brantbird; crooked-bill snipe; fall snipe; lead-bird; little black- breast; ox-bird; red-back; red-backed dunlin; red-backed sandpiper; stib; winter snipe; and simpleton. With all of these English names, you can see the need for just one scientific name used by scientists world wide.

Here are a few scientific tidbits about the bird's life history.

The Dunlin probes with its bill into the shore for sand fleas and other crustaceans, marine worms, mollusks and insects. In wet tundra, it will also eat the larvae of mosquitoes and mosquitoes themselves. I love them for this.

If you have the good fortune to find their nest in spring, you will see it is made of grass and leaves on a dry hummock on the tundra. Be careful where you step, because there may be four brown-spotted olive-green eggs in it. Both male and female incubate these eggs, and it takes about 21 days for them to hatch. 21 days after hatching, the young take their maiden flights and are more or less on their own. If they are very lucky, they may live for more than 14 years.

In Alaska we have two different populations of this little black-bellied sandpiper. One nests on the coastal tundra of the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta, and the other on the North Slope. Both are found on the Y-K Delta in late summer and early fall fattening up for their long migration south.

For Alaskan birders who may find themselves down south in winter, the Y-K Delta nesters can be seen from S.E. Alaska to Baja, California. The North Slope nesters will not be found so easily, however. After gorging themselves in the Y-K Delta on small insects and crustaceans, they head for Asia where they spend the winter along the coast of Japan and around the Yellow Sea in China and North and South Korea. Dunlins that nest in the Canadian North will be waiting for you from southern Florida to the Caribbean coast of Mexico and Central America. If you happen to be in Europe, look for the European birds in their winter habitat along the Mediterranean coast.

During migration Dunlins have been clocked by airplane at 45-110 mph.

Closing my eyes, I have visions of the wild frenetic flight of the Dunlins Iused to watch in Hooper Bay. Here's a poem I wrote many years ago, which I hope helps conjure up the same wonderful images for you.

My nerves quivered electrically
as I sat on a sand-dusted log
on the fringe of a sedge marsh
watching
a cloud of charcoal-bellied
Dunlins
billow up in a wavering swarm,
then surge and twist
in crystal salt air above
the mud flats near Hooper Bay.

Their frenetic frog chatter
surged excitedly
when a cackling family of Emperor geese
slowly commanded their way
across the darting
fleeing shadow,
now reflecting black like the black mud,
now silver like a mirror in the silver sun,
speckling the late summer sky
with the vibrant ricochet
and bounce
of shimmering tufts of dancing feathers.

Soon they drifted down again
to the green grass shore,
scurried around fretfully for a moment,
then finally stopped,
tucked their little down-bent bills
under tired gray wings,
and rested.
Dunlin

» List of Yupik Birds

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