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Other
Aging Characteristics
In addition to using plumage characteristics (see Appearance: molts and plumages), it is possible to age some birds as first-year or adult based on involution of Bursa of Fabricius and perhaps on stages of cranial pneumatization. Skulls of 2 adult C. a. hudsonia almost totally ossified, whereas stages (1 = little ossification to 8 = almost totally ossified) of cranial pneumatization for 16 first-year birds ranged from 1 to 4; mean size (mm) of Bursa of Fabricius in first-year birds from 30.0 (Sep, n = 1) to 44.0 (Oct, n = 16); organ totally involuted by end of first winter (McNeil and Burton 1972).
Warnock, Nils D. and Robert E. Gill. 1996. Dunlin (Calidris alpina), The Birds of North America Online (A. Poole, Ed.). Ithaca: Cornell Lab of Ornithology; Retrieved from the Birds of North America Online: http://bna.birds.cornell.edu/bna/species/203
