Banner Photo by Ann Kramer

Featured Bird

MEET THE RUDDY TURNSTONE (Arenaria interpres) – by Jeff Sinker

Colorful and easy to spot in a crowd of shorebirds, Ruddy Turnstones are long-distance migrants. Traveling thousands of miles from wintering grounds along rocky coasts and sandy beaches in North America, South America, Eurasia, Africa and Australia to reach their breeding grounds on the high Arctic tundra, they are never far from water. Adapted to walking on wet rocks along the shoreline with their short legs, spiny feet with sharply curved toenails and low center of gravity, they use their stout slightly upturned bill to flip over small rocks and probe into crevices to uncover insects and small crustaceans. Only two species of turnstone exist, Black and Ruddy, and both are found in Washington (and North America).

Preferred food items may change with the time of year. For breeding, it is all about packing on the protein. Highly sought after prey includes adult and larval flies, midges, spiders, beetles, bees and wasps. Before insects emerge, and during the non-breeding season, small crustaceans, mollusks and the eggs of unattended gull or tern nests are on the menu. Turnstones have been observed feeding on dead fish and mammals that wash up on the shore.

Both the male and female investigate potential nest sites located at the edge of tundra vegetation near water and out of the wind. The female makes the final selection and constructs a simple ground nest using small pieces of local vegetation to line the bottom. A successful pair will raise one brood per season, fledging 2-5 young after a 21-24 day incubation period. The young leave the nest with their parents within a few hours after hatching and will take their first flight at around 19 days old. Breeding pairs are monogamous and territorial while on their nesting grounds and often return in subsequent years to the same area to breed with the same partner.

Like other shorebirds, they are vulnerable to habitat loss and changes in food sources on their wintering and breeding grounds as well as migration routes. Beaches turned into condominiums eliminate wintering and stopover habitat. Overfishing of horseshoe crabs in Delaware Bay has reduced the number of crab eggs for turnstones and other shorebirds. Plastic pollution is an ever-present danger because small bits of plastic are mistaken for food and ingested by the birds. Ruddy Turnstones are listed as a species of high conservation concern by both the Western Hemisphere Shorebird Reserve Network and the US Shorebird Conservation Plan.  

Learn more: www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Ruddy_Turnstone.

Photo credit: Ruddy Turnstone by Jay McGowan/Macaulay Library

Range map: www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Ruddy_Turnstone