United States or Czechia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
"The bodies are like speckled Pullets', but the heads are like Pigeons' and the legs are very thin," said Rap. "See! there is a different one, ever so much nearer over on this side, but I can't make him out very well. Here comes the Doctor, all ready to go in swimming; of course he can tell us." "Those mottled birds with red legs are Turnstones," said the Doctor, after looking a moment.
The Kestrel does not, however, show itself so frequently in the low parts even in the autumn as on the high cliffs, so probably Ring Dotterell, Purres, and Turnstones do not form so considerable a part of its food as they do of the Merlin.
Howard Saunders; our first visit was on June the 21st, when we did not see a single Turnstone; but this was afterwards accounted for, as on a visit to Jago, the bird-stuffer, a short time afterwards, I found him skinning a splendid pair of Turnstones which had been shot in Herm a few days before our visit on the 17th or 18th of June; the female had eggs ready for extrusion; I need not say I did not exactly bless the person who, in defiance of the Guernsey Sea Birds Act, had shot this pair of Turnstones, as had they been left I have no doubt we should have seen them, and probably found the eggs, and quite settled the question of the Turnstone's breeding there.
Here, in company with gulls, turnstones, and other fowl of the foreshore, the rooks strut importantly up and down, digging their powerful bills deep in the ooze and occasionally bullying weaker neighbours out of their hard-earned spoils.
The more common prey, however, of the Merlin during the time it remains in the Islands is the Ring Dotterell, which at that time of year is to be found in large flocks mixed with Purres and Turnstones in all the low sandy or muddy bays in the Islands. The Merlin is included in Professor Ansted's list, but only marked as occurring in Guernsey. There is no specimen in the Museum at present.
Turnstones, Sanderlings, Curlews, and other denizens of the beaches and salt marshes migrate in great numbers along our Atlantic Coast. Some of them winter in the United States, and others pass on to the West Indies and southward. The extent of the annual journeys undertaken by some of these birds is indeed marvellous.
Here are, amongst others, the beautiful golden-ringed and dotterel plovers of Europe, and the American noisy plover. In the case which next claims attention are the turnstones, that turn stones on the sea-shore in search of food; the oyster catchers, that wrench shell fish from their shells; and the South American gold-breasted and other trumpeters.
Close to us a couple of turnstones, smart little birds in brown, with bright-red legs and beaks, were busy on a heap of kelp. I levelled my gun at them, and was about to fire, when Robbie stayed my hand and pointed to a large cormorant sheltered in a deep niche of the cliff and looking darker even than the dark rock over its head.
The fascination of the Sands was greatly enhanced by the numerous birds which at all times frequented them, in search of the abundant food which lay buried along the edges of the muddy gutters. There were thousands of sandpipers in enormous flocks, mixed with king plovers, dunlins, and turnstones, which followed the ebb tides, and returned again in whirling clouds before the oncoming floods.
Word Of The Day