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Dunlins have a bright rufous-and-black breeding plumage (this page) but in winter they assume the conservative garb seen here. The bird at bottom right, photographed in California in early August, is beginning to molt out of breeding plumage but shows most of the black belly and rusty-red upperparts of breeding dunlins. Birders identify them among flocks of other small sandpipers by their medium size, gray 'vests', and drooping bills. Most of these birds were feeding at the edge of the receding tide at Bolsa Chica wetlands in coastal Orange County, California; at Fort DeSoto Park, Florida and at sunset on Honeymoon Island, near Tarpon Springs, Florida.
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