Wildlife Watching Wednesday: The Ruddy Turnstone, Long-Distance Migrant

By: Tom Berg

The Ruddy Turnstone is a very interesting-looking bird that is often found along America’s coastal areas (East Coast, West Coast and the Gulf Coast).  Visitors to a Florida beach, for example, might think this bird is a year-round resident there – but they would be wrong.  Most ruddy turnstones hang around our coastal beaches during the non-breeding season, and then head for the far northern tundra in the arctic to breed and nest.

Ruddy turnstones are shorebirds, and their unusual plumage helps them blend in with their surroundings whether they are walking along a sandy beach or a rocky shoreline.  Their black and white head and neck does a good job of breaking up their profile and helping them blend in with their environment.  Their breeding plumage of black, brown, orange and white also helps camouflage them among the tundra’s lichens and ground cover when they are nesting.

Adult ruddy turnstones are about the size of an American robin, although they look a bit stockier than most robins.  Their pure white belly is hidden while they are incubating eggs in a nest, and their bright orange legs are also hidden from view.  Nesting takes place on the ground and the female usually lays 2-5 eggs.  The female does the vast majority of the incubating, but the male does take a turn periodically.

Ruddy turnstones are named for their tendency to use their bill to turn over stones and pebbles along the shoreline as they search for food.  They eat a variety of insects in their daily foraging, and while hunting along coastal waters they also eat small crabs and crustaceans, juvenile fish and small worms, and even miniature clams and other mollusks.

An interesting fact about the ruddy turnstone is that new hatchlings grow and mature very quickly.  Young turnstones learn to fly when they are only 19 or 20 days old, and this is after their parents have already left the breeding grounds.  Two days after taking their first flight, the young ruddy turnstones must start their first migration south, flying thousands of miles!

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