These are dunlins (Calidris alpina). I came upon a group hunkered down in the sand—most of them sleeping, tucked into the terrain like scattered leaves. When I got too close, they stirred and took flight.
I captured this photograph in Gulfport, Mississippi.
Step into a world where even the smallest moments—like the glint in a bird's eye—tell their own story.
"A flock of dunlins—small shorebirds with pointed wings and streamlined bodies—sweeps across a sandy expanse in mid-flight. Their wings slice the air in synchronized rhythm, each bird caught in a different pose: some with wings fully extended, others mid-flap, and a few banking gently as if turning in unison. The flock forms a loose, fluid arc, like a brushstroke of motion against the stillness of the ground.
The terrain below is pale and textured, resembling a beach or desert flat—its surface marked by subtle ridges and ripples, like wind-sculpted memory. The birds fly low, their shadows barely distinguishable, their bodies casting no interruption on the quiet canvas beneath them.
Their plumage is a mix of soft browns and grays, with white underbellies that flash briefly as they twist and turn. The dunlins move as one—each bird an individual, yet part of a collective pulse, a sovereign rhythm of migration and instinct.
The image captures a moment of wild coordination, a ballet of wings over sand, where time seems suspended and the earth listens." - Microsoft Copilot