Male, Ruddy Turnstone

I spent the day down at the rock jetty at Point Brown, Ocean Shores. Photographing surfbirds is always a treat. With a little patience and some careful, slow movements you can get quite close to the birds. Though at first a little wary, the birds soon realise that you do not present a threat and will soon ignore you. Among the flock this morning were two Ruddy Turnstones - a male and a female. This species is relatively unusual in Washington and is seen mainly in Spring and Fall migration.

Most of the outer coast is formed from long sandy beaches and only around the Olympic Penninsula are there any substantial areas of rocky shoreline where turnstones can be found. The rocky jetties at the mouth of Grays Harbor, laid down by the Army Corps. of Engineers, to stabilize the sediments and provde a navigable channel for ships visiting Aberdeen, are encrusted with barnacles, starfish and anenomes which also provide homes for a wide variety of crabs and other invertebrates. As a result the jetties are a magnet for the small numbers of surfbirds, tattlers and turnstones which visit Washington state as well as for birders and photographers who are saved from an arduous trek out along the rocky coast looking for these species.

Turnstones are typically very active birds, constantly exploring crevices and patches of seaweed for marine worms and small crustaceans. As a result moving around boulders and slippery seaweed can be quite a challenge, if not a little dangerous. This is where the good relationshiop the surfbirds comes in handy. Once the morning rush to feed was over, the rising tide pushed the birds onto higher ground, where they started to preen and catch up with a little sleep. The turnstones were still pretty active but they stayed close to the surfbirds and did not stray far out of range of the camera.