Along South Devon’s coastline, Turnstones can often be spotted taking shelter from the elements amongst large rocks, coastal defenses, and other structures. Through this time of the year, they can be spotted from their black and white colour scheme with a speckled grey head, before they begin to develop their summer plumage. Travelling in flocks, these coastal birds comb the coastline like little inspectors, flipping over various rocks to investigate the underside for tasty invertebrates.
During my time watching and photographing these birds in the last month, there were some dramatic shots of Turnstones running from incoming waves. They would narrowly miss out on being covered in the surf with sea spray and white froth crashing behind them as the sun rays came through onto the shot. As this article is printed in black and white, I felt a photo with a funnier story might be better here. Within the flock, there was one Turnstone who had a different approach to the others. As others would jump, run, and fly out of the path of the waves, this particular bird would ignore the incoming water completely becoming engulfed by the waves. Seconds later, they would reappear on the sand, readjust their feathers and head into shore doing a slow stompy march out of the tide. A performance I am sure would get entered successfully into the Monty Python Ministry of Silly Walks
This would happen almost every time. I don’t know if it was intentional or not, but I found it funny. As I was distracted by this, a wave did come up and soak my feet through. So, I ended up having to march out of the tide with wet feet too.
Tom Knowles www.TJKNature.com
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