Ruddy turnstone

Voice

A hard, staccato rattling tuk-a-tuk-tuk, low in pitch and usually fired off in short bursts on take-off. When alarmed it gives a sharp, metallic chek. Heard throughout the winter half-year, and because the birds skim so low along the sea wall the call often registers before the bird does.

Identification

Short and stocky, with a sharply tapering black bill and orange legs. Breeding birds are harlequin chestnut, black and white above, with a boldly marked head and a broad black breast band. In winter dark olive-brown replaces the chestnut and the breast band goes dull. In flight it cannot be missed: white wingbar, white back stripe, white shoulder patches and a white rump with black tail band.

Confusion species

Purple Sandpiper shares the rocks, the dark winter plumage and the yellowish legs, but is longer and finer-billed with an orange bill base and looks evenly slate-grey, without the sharply cut white throat and dark breast band. In flight the pattern settles it at once: Purple Sandpiper shows only a narrow wingbar, Turnstone a piebald arrangement of white on back, shoulders and rump.

Habitat

Rocky shores, groynes, piers, harbour quays, mussel beds and weed-covered tidelines. It levers with that wedge bill under stones, shells and stranded wrack, working systematically along a strip. In the Netherlands basalt dykes, locks and harbour moles are its favoured ground; it visits sandy beaches only where drift material has washed up.

Range and movements

Breeds on the Arctic tundra and rocky coasts of Greenland, Svalbard, Scandinavia and Siberia, and so not in the Netherlands. It winters along almost every rocky coast in Europe and Africa. In the Netherlands it is a faithful winter visitor to the Wadden dykes, the Delta works and the ports; in Iberia it sits on the Cantabrian rock coast and in the Galician rías.

• Resident
• Breeding (summer)
• Winter
• Passage
• Migration direction
• dark = core range, pale = thinly spread

Where and when to look

Walk a basalt dyke or harbour mole in October or January, preferably around low water when the stones are exposed. The birds are remarkably unshy and often allow a close approach. Look for movement: a Turnstone gives itself away by flipping shells and weed, not by its outline, which vanishes completely into the stones.

Conservation status

The world population is declining and the species is now listed as Near Threatened. On the breeding grounds the tundra is changing fast, while along the flyway feeding areas are lost to coastal defence, disturbance and shellfish harvesting. In the Netherlands the wintering population looks reasonably stable, helped by hard dykes and moles that suit it well.