Photographic Advent Calendar, Day 9: Turnstones

This is amongst our most frequently encountered shoreline waders, occurring in similar habitats as the more striking Oystercatcher. Perfectly camouflaged on pebble beaches, they can be very hard to spot. Often the sound of their handywork may be the first sign of their presence: as a small group systematically works a section of beach, turning every rock and pebble over with their short beak in search of tasty invertebrates beneath. They are certainly aptly-named, and are a pleasure to watch when at work like this. For the rest of the tidal regime, they can be found roosting on exposed rocky outcrops and boulders, where they may gather with other species like Purple Sandpipers and Oystercatchers.

Turnstones breed in the arctic tundra, wintering as far south as Africa! Many stop off in the UK to make use of the rich food that can be found along our coast; around 51, 000 birds are thought to overwinter here, but declines have placed this species on our Amber list. In the US, the Turnstones breeding in Northern Cananda and Alaska winter in South America. Turnstones have been recorded at an age of 20 years, according to the BTO, and recoveries of British-ringed birds are far-ranging. We had a particularly good spree of catching and ringing these superb birds at the end of the summer- we managed to ring over 20 in a few days, and so hopefully we'll have some exciting news from one of these one day!

Full Moon tides and Turnstones

The last week has been particularly productive for waders, and in particular for Turnstones. The full moon currently lighting up the nights has produced some of the highest tides of the year, with a 10.2 metre high tide today. These high tides have encouraged high numbers of waders to congregate around certain areas on the Narrows. One of the best sites is Solfach, where the shelter of the bay encourages deposition of kelp and other seaweed: this in turn creates a massive amount of food for birds, being home to lots of different invertebrates.

Some of the totals for this week's wader counts have been quite impressive: yesterday we saw 72 Turnstones, which is the highest count for several years. Other high counts have included eight Ringed Plovers (30th), 81 Knots (28th), five Purple Sandpipers (27th), 13 Dunlins (30th), 10 Whimbrels (27th), 38 Curlews (28th), eight Redshanks (30th) and a Common Sandpiper.

The Turnstones have been particularly photogenic, and it has been great fun to lie down near the shoreline and watch as they go about their business: industriously turning over every pebble and rock in search of grub, and squabbling over the best feeding areas, with tails drooped in aggression. I have been photographing them alongside James O'neill, who has got some cracking shots too- you can check out his Flickr stream for more images. I have included a fairly large selection of images taken over the last few days below. I hope you enjoy!

This panoramic shows Bardsey mountain, and Solfach in the foreground

And some flight shots from yesterday...

Autumn migration update

Autumn migration seems to be very slow this year: in most years, the numbers of bright yellow juvenile Willow Warblers begins to rise from mid-July onwards, as birds begin their southward migration to Sub-Saharan Africa. Occasionally these numbers can reach peaks of 1000 (2nd August 2011) in early August. However, this year has seen very low numbers, with counts barely rising into the double figures during the whole of July and first part  of August. These lower than average numbers were mirrored in other species such as Sedge Warblers and White Wagtails, whilst hirundines have had some good passage days during the last few weeks. Most of this is down to the weather, with very unsettled conditions bringing windy and wet weather for prolonged periods during the summer.

The last week has seen a slight change, with calmer conditions encouraging some bigger arrivals and interesting sightings. On the 14th we had an arrival of almost 400 Willow Warblers, accompanied with 34 Spotted Flycatchers, two Garden Warblers, one Blackcap, four Chiffchaffs, five Whitethroats and three Goldcrests; in addition, recent days have seen Tree Pipits, Whinchats, Yellow Wagtail, Song Thrush and Short-eared Owl stopping off on the island. With the recent new moon, the high tides have brought a good deposit of seaweed onto Solfach, which has in turn encouraged a good number of waders to its shore. Peak counts have included 10 Ringed Plovers on the 16th, 25 Dunlins on the 15th, three Bar-tailed Godwits and a Whimbrel on the 17th, 32 Curlews on the 16th, 11 Redshanks, six Common Sandpipers and 12 Turnstones on the 17th, whilst scarcer visitors comprised a female Ruff (14th-16th), Green Sandpiper (17th), and three Bar-tailed Godwits (17th).

Sightings of rarer visitos to the island have been frequent in the last week: a single Great Crested Grebe off the coast on the 12th was surprisingly followed by a flock of five on the 13th- this is a very rare bird on the island, with no records for over 10 years before 2014! A Greater Spotted Woodpecker on the 13th was a good record too, and this bird stayed for a few days in the more wooded areas of the island. On the 16th, a large white bird was picked up flying south-west a mile or two off the coast. After a while, it became clear that it was an egret of some kind, and judging by the size, a Great White Egret! The island third record!

After a stunning few days, the weather looks to be breaking up in the following week, which will bring a good selection of seabirds past the coast, but conversely will not favour the arrivals of the smaller migrants on the island. Here is a selection of images from the last couple of weeks:

An adult and juvenile Oystercatcher roost amidst the breaking waves

many of the Turnstones are smart summer-plumaged birds

Kestrel

Willow Warblers are by far the most numerous migrant on land at the moment, but 90% are now adult birds (above). We have missed out on the large movement of bright juvenile birds that takes place earlier in the month. 

Juvenile Sedge Warbler

Whinchat- there have been a couple of birds present in the last week

Linnet numbers have increased substantially in recent days and weeks, with daily counts over 320 at the moment. Many are feeding in the oat and borage mix planted at the north end

the female Ruff spent a good few days feeding amongst the waders in Solfach

juvenile Dunlin

A Grey Heron flying in front of the buildings of Bardsey Bird and Field Observatory

Oystercatchers

No stretch of coastline around the UK is complete without at least a few pairs of Oystercatchers. Bardsey is home to about 80 pairs, which breed around the entire coastline year after year. From mid-Spring to late Summer it is rather hard to go for a walk anywhere near the sea without setting a pair up into the air with their loud piercing alarm calls, and with the ferocious attacks in some situations. They are, despite becoming rather annoying as the year progresses, pretty charasmatic birds that are certainly on of the most obvious things that pop into mind when you think of the coast. (well, certainly for me, at any rate).

At the moment, all of the pairs around the island are incubating eggs, which are laid in a small scrape on a rocky ledge or shingle beach. Both the males and females can share incubating duties, although most often it is the female. The period of incubation is between 24 and 27 days, whereafter it can often take another few weeks before the chicks fledge. The young are said to be precocial, which just means that they hatch out at a fairly advanced stage of development, leaving the nest very soon after hatching, find their own food, and follow their parents.

An interesting fact about Oystercatcher chicks is that, due to the species' very specialised feeding habit, the young will often remain with the parents for weeks so that they may learn the techniques involved in extracting bivalves from their tough shells. It has even been said that the young may associate with their parents for up to a year after fledging.

I have made a bit more of an effort to photograph this species in its element this year, with a mixture of long exposures and finding the right locations for atmospheric shots. Here is a selection of images from the last week, taken with Canon 7Dmk II and Canon 300mm f2.8 + 1.4x converter.

A few nights ago I was out in the evening when a very heavy rain storm arrived. Instead of running back to the house or nearest shelter, I took the opportunity to try and get some more atmospheric images of a few Oystercatchers which were perched on some rocks not far away. With a strong wind, the rain was almost horizontal, and got very heavy indeed. Sheltering behind my camera bag, I was really pleased when the sun dropped below the rain cloud on the western side of me, and so backlit the rain in a really nice way. I experimented using different shutter speeds to get the most desirable effect on the rain

There are around 80 pairs of Oystercatchers nesting on Bardsey, and they are all incubating eggs at the moment. I used a remote shutter release and fisheye lens to capture this bird on a nest on Solfach. This bird is relatively tolerant of human presence on the beach, due to the number of visitors that visit

For this image I used a slow shutter speed of 25th second to capture the slightly backlit waves crashing on the rock. This type of image is one that I have really been experimenting with this year

A somewhat perturbed Oystercatcher reacting to me being a bit too close to their hidden nest

A couple more

Spring Waders

With the weather conditions very much up and down at the moment, there have been plenty of days when common passerine migrants have been very thin on the ground. The strong south-westerly winds and accompanying rain showers have, however, turned up a neat variety of waders around the coast of the island. This appearance has been helped by the recent full moon, which has increased the tide heights and thus forced many waders onto a much shorter area of coastline. I spent a morning in Solfach Hide a few days ago, watching Whimbrels, Ringed Plovers, Dunlins and Common Sandpipers coming and going, feeding along the edge of the sea. The driving rain allowed for some more atmospheric images to be taken, as can be seen below. I hope you enjoy this selection of pictures:

Whimbrels in flight. These were taken with a Canon 7D mk II, a Canon 300mm f2.8 and a Canon 1.4x converter. I was quite pleased with the performance of the 7D in the low light in the top few images, with minimal noise levels.

The top image is of an Oystercatcher taking off from a rock as a large wave rolls in. This bird is underlit by the sea foam and spray below. Again, this was taken with the following: Canon 7D mk II, Canon 300mm f2.8 and Canon 1.4x converter. The second image is the same bird before the wave hit!

 I spent a little while photographing these Ringed Plovers as they fed on the beach. I found that sitting still about 6 metres from the waters edge worked well, as the birds would work the length of the beach, and when they came past me they would sprint as fast as they could until they were a little further away. In the upper image, I used a shutter speed of 1/150th sec to try and capture a bit of the speed

Common Sandpiper

Dunlin numbers are really starting to build up now, with around 10 individuals on the beach most days. I am sure there will be a blog post to follow focussing exclusively on this species, but here is a quick shot of one running past