WADER 43/60 - Ruddy Turnstone

Ruddy Turnstone

A stocky, brightly patterned shorebird, the Ruddy Turnstone can be seen actively pecking, probing, and flipping over stones along rocky shores or mudflats.

The Ruddy Turnstone is a stocky medium-sized wader with short orange-red legs. The bill is wedge-shaped and slightly up-tilted. The breast is distinctively marked with black or brown and pale areas, almost like tortoise shell, with a white breast. The brown upperparts turn a rich reddish-brown when breeding and the bands on the face and neck turn black. In flight there is a distinctive black and white pattern.

After breeding in the northern hemisphere, Ruddy Turnstones migrate south. There are five breeding populations. The birds migrating to Australia breed in east Siberia and west Alaska, moving through south-east Asia then south to Australia. Some birds appear to migrate south across the Pacific Ocean, island-hopping to the east coast and to New Zealand, probably returning north again via east Asia. They visit Australia from about September to May. On the way down some stop by along the coastal mudflats of peninsula Malaysia.

 

 

The stocky body and duck like shape is conspicuous of  Turnstone

 Non-breeding is plainer in plumage seen here

 

Ruddy Turnstones feed busily, by probing, pecking and poking into cracks. They turn over stones and seaweed to find sand hoppers, crustaceans, molluscs and spiders. They sometimes eat eggs and carrion (dead things), feeding by day and night. Ruddy Turnstones have a  strong, wedge-shaped bills and pointed at the tip to turn over rocks and seaweed.