The Turnstones of Hastings
Anyone walking along the Hastings and St Leonards’ seafront during autumn and winter cannot fail to notice the small groups of Turnstones busily feeding along the tideline, or mixing it with pigeons on the pavement and grass verges.
Generalists in all respects
Most waders are specialists, relying on long or curved beaks for probing, scooping or sifting, stout beaks for breaking open shellfish, and long legs for wading.
Turnstones however are the generalists of the wader family. They are as comfortable overwintering along remote beaches, as they are in urban areas, and as content with the temperate climate of the UK as the warm Mediterranean coastline. They can be seen on the shoreline of shingle beaches looking for food under pebbles and piles of seaweed, probing deep into silt, tackling shellfish and crabs, looking for insects and invertebrates in the grass verges, or competing with the pigeons for handouts on the promenade.
They arrive as early as July from their breeding grounds. The ones that arrive in UK are mainly those that breed in Greenland and Canada1. Some are still showing their distinctive chestnut coloured breeding plumage.
They will leave during March and April on their long return journey – they can travel more 1000km a day, and take nearly two weeks to reach the destination.
They arrive in small flocks of anything from 10 to 30 birds, tending to stay in the same group throughout the winter, and remain faithful to this group. And so the groups we see in Hastings will consist of many of the same individuals year on year, and we can say with some confidence that the ones we see are the Hastings Turnstones.
Against a pebble background their plumage is cryptic. We’ve often spotted one and thought it to be a solitary fellow, only to realise that the flock is there, merging beautifully with the shingle mosaic.
How common are they?
Turnstones do appear to be an extremely common wader. They have a worldwide distribution, ranging across Europe, the Americas, Australasia and Africa, and hence they have a large global population. In the UK they appear to be a common wader, largely because we are used to seeing them in urban settings, as we do in Hastings.
In fact Turnstones are not at the top of the list of Britain’s most abundant wintering waders: Dunlin (340,000) Oystercatcher (290,000), Knot (260,000) , Eurasian Curlew (120,000), Redshank (94,000) are well above them in terms of numbers. The Turnstone comes in at 40,000. 2
Declining Numbers in the UK
In terms of their global conservation status, they are classified as a bird of “least concern”. This is what we would expect of such an adaptable bird. In the UK, the wintering population has an amber conservation status, as the population is in decline. The British Trust for Ornithology’s latest estimates suggest a decline of around 30% has occurred over the last 40 years3.
Research suggests that while factors in their breeding grounds affecting reproduction success are likely to be the main cause of the decline, the conditions that they experience during their overwinter in the UK are also an important consideration.
Graham Appleton1 suggests that increasing disturbance by people and dog walkers may account in part for the decline. If the birds move from their preferred feeding area to an equally good area, where they can continue to feed well, this will impact less, than if they move from a preferred spot to an area that is less satisfactory. Well fed birds manage disturbance well, and manage the immense migration distances without problem. Less well fed birds are less able to cope.
And so how do the Hastings Turnstones manage in such a busy environment? Perhaps the range of food they can acquire, including the many titbits from people and the scavenged food, is significant. Perhaps also, it is the fact that the Turnstone groups that return to Hastings year on year, are well used to people, and take flight less readily than those that live in less disturbed areas.
Whatever the reasons, we are fortunate that the Turnstones continue to return. Hastings beach is all the richer for their presence!
Note: 1 Disturbed Turnstones Feb 2020 Graham Appleton https://wadertales.wordpress.com/2020/02/03/disturbed-turnstones/.
Note: 2 Population estimates of Wintering Water Birds of Great Britain, 2019, Teresa Frost et al https://britishbirds.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Brit.-Birds-112-130-145.pdf
Note: 3 BTO Bird Facts Turnstone Arenaria interpres: https://app.bto.org/birdfacts/results/bob5610.ht
Thank you Chris for your interesting article on these charming little birds .I have often wondered what they were and really love the way they diligently forage and merge with the
stones.
Charming and diligent seem to sum them up perfectly Rosie. It’s great they’ve caught your interest!
The most extraordinary thing for me is just how far they travel each year to their breeding grounds and then their return here. They are long lived little birds, and do this perhaps 10 or 12 times during their life time.
Thank you for this interesting piece and lovely photographs.