MAY 16, selected pics: ruddy turnstones

ruddy turnstone in flight (background subtracted image)

ruddy turnstone (flying over beach with oyster shells)

Authors' Note:  Ruddy turnstones, sparrow-sized shorebirds, despite their tiny size, are intrepid and accomplished migrators, with a rigorous annual pole-to-pole itinerary. For a few years now, I have seen them in late May on the same small strip of beach near a harborside boardwalk in the Carolina lowcountry. They seem consumed, when there in groups of a dozen or so, not with global travel issues, but rather with mundane considerations such as which individual can claim rights to a small hole dug in the sand.

You can review an illustrated poem about these shorebirds in general HERE, and one about ruddy turnstones in particular HERE.