Chapter C: A. Bobbins (1919) in a study of a colony of piping plovers breeding (3)

I first went to this island in December, 1910. On nice days
when the sea was smooth it was my custom to row around the
reefs observing the birds. I found the surf birds generally
in company with Aleutian sandpipers and black turnstones.
There would be a half dozen on this reef and similar
bunches on neighboring reefs. Their actions were very
lively, now running to a higher point on the rock as the
wash from the swell came rushing up, now running down again
as the water receded, feeding busily. The only thing I ever
found in their stomachs was small mussels about an eighth
of an inch long, occasionally up to a quarter of an inch.
The following autumn they returned though I did not note
the date. I saw them from time to time during the winter
in the winters of 1912–13, 1913–14, 1914–15, 1915–16,
1916–17. They would arrive the last week in October or the
first week in November. The flock on its first arrival
would number about 200 birds. They would begin to leave
the island the 1st of April and by the 1st of May there
would be none left. They did not visit the high parts of
the island but confined themselves to the reefs and gravel
bars. They were very wary and hard to approach on foot
though they would sometimes allow a boat to come within 10
yards.

DISTRIBUTION

_Range._--Western North and South America.

_Breeding range._--The breeding range of the surf bird is evidently in the higher mountains of the interior of Alaska. The nest and eggs have been found on one occasion only, in the Mount McKinley district (Dixon, 1927), but Murie (1924) found young, apparently about a week old, at the headwaters of Forty-mile River. There also seems a strong probability that the species breeds in the Selawik Range on the south side of the Kowak Valley (Grinnell, 1900), and in the region around the head of the Savage River in the Alaska Range (Murie, 1924).

Sharing a trait with other shore birds, some nonbreeders frequently remain through the summer at points far south of the breeding grounds. During this period they have been noted in California (Santa Barbara and the Farallone Islands); Oregon (Newport); and Washington (Destruction Island and Camp Mora, Clallam County).

_Winter range._--In winter the surf bird is found on the Pacific coast both of North and South America. It has been detected south to the Straits of Magellan (Van Island in Trinity Channel), and at other points on the coast of Chile (Valdivia, Paposo, and Atacama); and Peru (Pisco Bay). At this season in North America it has been collected or observed in California (Monterey and probably San Francisco Bay region); Oregon (Cape Meares, Cannon Beach, and the entrance to Yaquina Bay); Washington (Jefferson County and Destruction Island); and Alaska (Wrangel and Craig). These latter records would appear to indicate that some individuals are only partially migratory.

_Migration._--Because of the extensive areas that may be occupied by the species, particularly in winter, and in view of the scarcity of existing data, it is difficult to present an adequate picture of its migrations. The following dates may, however, throw some light on its movements.

_Spring migration._--Early dates of arrival are Lower California, San Geronimo Island, March 15; California, San Diego, March 19; Oregon, Newport, March 21; Washington, Puget Sound, March 8; and Alaska, Admiralty Island, April 17, Forrester Island, April 20, Kuiu Island, April 25, Craig, May 9, and Kobuk River, May 29.

Late dates of spring departure are Chile, Van Island, March 3; Lower California, San Geronimo Island, April 13, Turtle Bay, April 14, and Abreojos Point, April 19; California, Los Angeles, May 1, Santa Barbara, May 4, Point Pinos, May 10, and San Nicolas Island, May 15; Oregon, Newport, May 3; and Washington, Jefferson County, April 28.

_Fall migration._--Early dates of fall arrival are: Alaskan coast, Sitka, July 21, and Nushagak, August 9; British Columbia, Porcher Island, July 12, and Queen Charlotte Islands, August 2; Oregon, Newport, July 24; and California, Monterey Bay, August 3, and Point Pinos, August 5.

Late dates of fall departure are: Alaska, Craig, September 4, Sitka, September 5, and Nome, September 9; British Columbia, Comox, September 2; Oregon, Netarts Bay, November 19; and California, Berkeley, October 24.

_Egg dates._--Alaska: One record, May 28, 1926.

ARENARIA INTERPRES (Linnaeus)

TURNSTONE

HABITS

The above species is cosmopolitan; it has a circumpolar breeding range, and its migrations extend over nearly all of the Northern Hemisphere and a large part of the Southern. It has been split into two, or possibly three, geographical races. In the author’s opinion only two races should be recognized; the Palaearctic form, _interpres_, averages slightly larger, and is decidedly darker, the black predominating over the rufous on the upper parts; the Nearctic form, _morinella_, averages slightly smaller, is decidedly lighter, the rufous predominating on the upper parts; these two races are well marked and are generally recognized. The Pacific race has been described under the name _oahuensis_, from specimens taken on Oahu Island in the Hawaiian group. It is supposed to breed in Alaska and spend the winter in the Hawaiian and other Pacific islands. It seems to be strictly intermediate, both in size and color, between _interpres_ and _morinella_. Some of the best authorities have not recognized it in nomenclature, which seems to be a wise course. For the purpose of this life history the species as a whole will be considered.

_Spring._--The northward migration of the ruddy turnstone through the United States is accomplished mainly during May, but many linger along through the first week in June. I have seen turnstones in Louisiana as late as June 17 and 23, but some that I shot were immature birds, apparently 1 year old, which probably would not breed that season. Arthur T. Wayne (1910) has seen high plumaged birds in South Carolina on June 11 and 12, which were doubtless late migrants; but he says that birds in immature or winter plumage are seen in June more frequently than adults. These latter illustrate the well-established fact that many shore birds do not attain their full plumage and do not breed during their first year, but remain within their winter ranges or far south of their breeding ranges all summer.

Many observers have stated that turnstones do not migrate in large flocks in the spring, but I have seen some very large flocks on Cape Cod containing several hundred. On the coast of New Jersey during the latter part of May, 1927, we saw a wonderful flight of this and other shore birds; on the 20th we counted 3,600 turnstones, on the 26th 4,500, on the 27th 5,000, and on the 28th 7,000; many of these were in immense flocks of this species only, but more often they were associated in large flocks with black-bellied plovers; one enormous flock of the two species was estimated to contain 3,500 birds.

The main migration route is along the sea coast. Migrants have been known to reach Massachusetts as early as May 1, and my latest date is June 5; but the main flight comes during the latter half of May. Dr. W. Elmer Ekblaw tells me that it reaches its breeding grounds in northwestern Greenland during the first week in June.

There is a regular migration northward through the interior, but in much smaller numbers. Pierce Brodkorb and Frank Grasett give me dates for northeastern Illinois from April 30 to June 18. We collected specimens in Nelson County, N. Dak., on June 5, and at Lake Winnipegosis, Manitoba, on June 1 and 2; but we did not record the species at all during the two seasons spent in southwestern Saskatchewan. Prof. William Rowan tells me that it is rare in his section of Alberta. The route is evidently northward from Manitoba through the Athabaska-Mackenzie region. Samuel F. Rathbun has sent me the following notes on the former abundance of turnstones in Manitoba:

In that Province we spent the greater part of the spring
and summer of 1889, and on one occasion went to Lake
Manitoba driving as directly as possible across what was
then an unsettled country. We clambered up one of the dunes
and looked over its top, and right in front of us and up
and down the beach almost as far as could be seen, were
countless numbers of shore birds. On the sands nearly all
of these were in constant motion, while over the surface of
the lake flocks were flying to and fro. By far the greater
number of the birds were turnstones and the flocks of these
were always very large. I hesitate to give my estimate
of the number seen, but I made many counts and forming a
rough guess from these judged at the time that there must
have been somewhere near eight or ten thousand of the
turnstones. And I have always believed this estimate to be
somewhere near correct. This was on the 30th of May and it
may have been that we were fortunate to have happened to
witness the height of the movement of these birds.

The ruddy turnstone is a rather uncommon migrant on the Pacific coast in April and May. Mr. Rathbun says in his notes that it--

appears to be a regular spring migrant along the ocean
coast of Washington, first being seen in early May. The
earlier birds seem to arrive in small numbers, to be
followed by flocks of fair size, but at no time are the
turnstones as common as are most of the other species of
shore birds that migrate along the coast.

From its winter home in Australia the turnstone makes an early start for its long flight over the ocean; W. B. Alexander tells me that his latest record is of a pair seen April 25, 1914, on the estuary of the Lost River on the south coast of western Australia. The Pacific form of the turnstone has been named _oahuensis_ from a specimen taken on the island where Honolulu is situated. The birds leave the Hawaiian Islands in May and probably make a 2,000-mile flight over the Pacific Ocean to the Commander and Aleutian Islands. Dr. Leonhard Stejneger (1885) says that they make their appearance in the Commanders “early in May (in 1883 the first ones were observed on the 7th), and the beach, especially on the north shore of Bering Island, fairly swarms with them. In June they disappear, and only a few remain during the summer.” In his notes from Hooper Bay, Alaska, H. B. Conover says: “On May 15 Du Fresne shot the first bird of this species. He had found it sitting humped up on a log showing through the snow. The next day a pair was seen, and after that date they were noticed constantly. On May 28 the migration still must have been going on, as a flock of about 20 was seen mixed with 6 golden plover.”

_Courtship._--Doctor Ekblaw has sent me the following notes:

The ruddy turnstone is almost if not quite as common as
the ringed plover along the beaches and about the gravelly
moraines and terraces of northwest Greenland. It comes to
the land the first week in June, frequenting the drifts of
kelp along the shore when the ice foot has melted away.
There they probe about the shells and seaweed, turning the
long drifts over to a depth of 3 inches. Where they have
worked, the shore looks as if a drove of tiny pigs had
rooted about.

They begin mating as soon as they arrive, and many a
bitter struggle and amorous courtship takes place among
these birds during the first two weeks of June. The males
outnumber the females, so the rivalry is keen. As the
lowering sun of the day sinks nearest the midnight horizon
the wooing antics are at the height. Frequently two males
pursue the same female, seeking to win her favor, the while
they are combating one another for the advantage. In giddy,
reckless flight they sweep back and forth along the shore,
rarely rising more than 3 feet above the beach, usually but
a foot. When alighted the pursuit is just as eager, the
female racing about to escape the insistent attentions of
the males, the males eagerly pursuing her and struggling
between themselves for supremacy. The more pugnacious
usually wins out, though the other never gives up hope.

The Rev. F. C. R. Jourdain contributes the following notes on the subject:

A study of the published records of the breeding habits of
the turnstone discloses the fact that practically nothing
has ever been written on the courtship and song of this
species. The only apparent exception is a passage by A.
Trevor-Battye (1895), who says: “This lovely bird has a
far more elaborate song than that of any wader I know. You
really may call it a song. I put it down at the time as
_chewah, chewah, chewecki, ki-ki-ki kee kee_, and he sings
it _con amore_ from any little mound.” My first experience
with the turnstone dates back to 1921, when with Mr. A.
H. Paget Wilkes we found the nests of some 19 pairs in
Spitsbergen. It was then late in the breeding season; every
pair had incubated eggs or young, but directly one arrived
within range of a breeding pair the cock would fly out to
meet us and greet us with his little challenge song. As a
rule attempts to describe the notes of birds by means of
letters are chiefly remarkable for their discrepancies,
but if Mr. Paget Wilkes’s version of the “attack note” is
compared with that of Mr. Trevor-Battye, the resemblance is
striking, _tche-wick ... tsche-wick, tche-wi-i-i-i-i-i-ck_.
Obviously the two “songs” are the same, yet we heard this
challenge daily from birds far advanced in incubation
and even with newly hatched young. It continued as long
as we remained in the neighborhood of the nest, and was
sometimes repeated in a weaker form by the female. When
the young were being brooded by the male and the female
was on guard this challenge note was uttered by her.
There is, of course, a strong element of challenge in all
bird song, and the turnstone is a born fighter. No foe is
too formidable to be attacked and driven off. It is most
amusing to see a male chasing a bird ten times as big as
himself and returning complacently to his sentry duty until
the approach of another probable enemy brings him again to
the attack.

There is little doubt that all the “singing” males met with
by Trevor-Battye were really breeding birds defending the
territories and, as they fondly imagined, driving him away.
Of course the cheery little _chirrup_ of the turnstone has
no claim to musical excellence in spite of Trevor-Battye’s
exaggerated praise; no one could possibly compare it to
the sweet wild notes of the curlew or even the flutelike
notes of the purple sandpiper. Apparently in this species
the fighting instinct has replaced the tendency to display
on the wing before the female; and while many other waders
utter musical notes during the love flight the turnstone
reserves his for the attack.

_Nesting._--Comparatively few nests of the ruddy turnstone have ever been found, as the bird nests in the far north, where few ornithologists have been. A set of three eggs in my collection, taken by Capt. Joseph Bernard on Taylor Island, Victoria Land, on August 1, 1917, possibly a second laying, was in a hollow on the tundra. MacFarlane found only two sets on the lower Anderson River, which were precisely similar to those of the other waders, consisting of a few withered leaves placed in a depression in the ground, each containing four eggs. Eggs collected by Rev. A. R. Hoare at Point Hope, Alaska, were laid “in depressions on mossy ridges of the tundra.” Herbert W. Brandt has sent me the following notes on the nesting habits of these birds in Alaska:

At Hooper Bay the ruddy turnstone like the indigenous
plovers is an open-nesting bird and it depends for
concealment of its eggs upon the similarity of the shell
coloration to its surroundings. Near a limpid pool in
the low-rolling dunes the bird makes a shallow, circular
depression in the brownish green, velvetlike moss and this
it lines, haphazardly, with a few moss stems and often with
small crisp leaves of low-creeping woody plants. The range
of measurements of five nests is: Inside diameter, 3¾ to 4½
inches; inside depth, 1 to 1½ inches; and depth over all is
1 to 1¾ inches. The pied parents follow the habits of the
open-nesting birds, for they are wild and unapproachable
while breeding; so that in spite of its exposed location
the nest is anything but easy to find. Incubation patches
were present on both sexes and they did not employ, to
lure the intruder from the nesting area, the usual wounded
tactics of the other shore birds.

In the Eastern Hemisphere numerous nests have been found and considerable has been published on the subject. Henry J. Pearson (1904), during his three summers in Russian Lapland, found several nests of the turnstone. On June 13, 1899, on Little Heno Island, he found a nest with four fresh eggs on a low sand spit. “The nest was placed in a patch of dwarf sallow, 10 inches high, and near the edge of a bank, the slight depression being lined with a few dry grasses and dead leaves.” Another nest was found on June 27 on Great Heno. After watching the bird in vain for a long time on “a bare stretch of peat, with scarcely a scrap of vegetation and full of puffin holes,” they returned the next day and flushed the turnstone out of a puffin hole; “and there was a nest 18 inches from the mouth, containing three eggs more than half incubated; a few dead sorrel stalks had been taken in to form the nest.” On June 19, 1901, on Medveji Island, a nest was found “placed under a large overhanging shelf of peat, in such a position that the bird could slip on and off in two different directions according to that from which danger was threatened. The young were formed in the four incubated eggs.” He refers to two other nests found on a sand spit, which were “on the open ground with no protection beyond a few blades of grass.”

W. C. Hewitson (1856) found a nest on the coast of Norway on “a flat rock, bare except where here and there grew tufts of grass, or stunted juniper clinging to its surface”; the nest “was placed against a ledge of the rock, and consisted of nothing more than the drooping leaves of the juniper bush, under a creeping branch of which the eggs, four in number, were snugly concealed.”

A number of nests of the turnstone were found by the Oxford expedition to Spitsbergen, about which A. H. Paget-Wilkes (1922) has given us considerable information. He says that “in spite of the presence of large and small boulders and stones the turnstone in Spitsbergen does not lay its eggs under the shelter of this somewhat scanty cover or in the small holes or pockets in the soil, but chooses perfectly open and bare, wind-swept places for its breeding sites.” Some seven nests were found on islands and one of these is described as “a very flat depression among small stones on a small ridge of dry, red mud.” Other nests were scattered along the shore at intervals of about three-quarters of a mile; but in one place five or six pairs were nesting within a radius of half a mile. One nest was on a little island of hard mud, only three yards by two yards in a stream. The turnstones are very active and aggressive in defending their nests against the jaegers; these marauders are persistently harried, desperately attacked, and finally driven away.

Ralph Chislett (1925) gives an interesting account of finding the turnstone breeding on a Baltic isle, where the nests were hidden among the dense herbage. He says:

Against the sky, not more than 30 yards away, appearing
over the top of a rise in the ground, as seen from the
hiding tent, was a group of chervil flower heads. One of
the turnstones, on taking wing, flew directly to these
flower heads and appeared to settle in the midst of them.
After giving the bird time to get settled on the eggs (I
hoped) I crawled out of the tent, and keeping low was
within 6 yards of the chervil clump when the turnstone took
wing from a point 2 yards on the other side, repeating its
cry much more meaningly than hitherto. I had been prepared
to find the nest under shelter of some sort, but had not
expected the eggs to be so completely hidden from view as
proved to be the case here. The nest lay on the seaward
side of the clump. To obtain a view for the camera, a tall
chervil stalk, some leaves, and grasses had to be removed.
The definite scrape was lined with bits of seaweed and dry
grass stems to a depth of more than 1 inch.

_Eggs._--Mr. Brandt has sent me the following good description of the turnstone’s eggs collected by his party in Alaska:

The ruddy turnstone lays four eggs and these may justly
claim rank as some of the handsomest of all the delightful
Hooper Bay limicoline series. They are subpyriform to
ovate in shape and lie points together in the shallow
nest. The shell is glossy and smooth and is quite strong.
The markings seldom cover more than half the area of the
eggs and in consequence the ground color is prominent. The
latter is quite variable, ranging from “yellowish glaucous”
to “olive buff” and even “deep olive buff.” The surface
markings are usually bold and are most heavily concentrated
on the larger end, but one striking type is known for its
beautiful marbled effect as the spots which are large and
clouded softly fade into the glossy ground color. These
spots are irregular in outline and are often slightly
elongate, twisting into a pronounced clockwise spiral. The
usual color of the primary spots is “warm sepia,” but in
the greenish setting they are “olive brown” while in the
marbled type “citrine drab” is the prevailing shade. When
the underlying markings are given prominence their soft
tones add to the beauty of the eggs. The colors of these
partially hidden ornaments range from “pale mouse gray” to
“mouse gray.” The additional markings of brownish black
to black are sparsely scattered over the larger part of
the egg usually in the form of small spots or pen-like
scratches. The vitality of the shore birds is attested by
the fact that four turnstone’s eggs laid in four days weigh
2½ ounces, while the parent bird herself weighs but 3½
ounces.

Most of the turnstone’s eggs that I have seen are easily recognizable, though the distinctive features are more easily seen than described. The markings are usually quite evenly distributed and the egg well covered with them. The 12 eggs so well illustrated on Frank Poynting’s (1895) beautiful plate, all taken from European eggs, show some variations not mentioned by Mr. Brandt. The buffy ground colors range from “dark olive buff” to “olive buff”; and greenish ones from “water green” to “yellowish glaucous.” One plain-looking egg is “dark olive buff” with faint markings of a slightly darker shade. Another is “water green” with numerous, small, almost black spots, and underlying small spots of “light mouse gray.” The measurements of 100 European eggs furnished by the Rev. F. C. R. Jourdain, average 40.5 by 29.2 millimeters; the eggs showing the four extremes measure =44.5= by 30.4, 43.2 by =31.3=, =36= by 28.2 and 40.5 by =26= millimeters. Mr. Brandt’s 44 eggs, from Alaska, average slightly smaller, 39 by 28 millimeters; the extremes of his and all other American and Greenland eggs that I have measurements of fall within the limits given above for European eggs. Egg measurements would seem to indicate that Alaska birds should be referred to _morinella_, the smaller race.

_Young._--The period of incubation does not seem to be known, but it is a well-established fact that both sexes share in this duty, as well as in the care of the young. Mr. Paget-Wilkes (1922) says:

Both sexes incubate, but when the eggs are fresh or partly
incubated the hen seems to brood and the cock stands on
guard. When the eggs were within a day or two of hatching
or were just chipping we invariably found the cock
incubating, and when the young were out we always found the
cock looking after the family and the hen, with her duller
plumage and weaker notes, on guard. These characteristics
observed in the cases of 19 pairs should form a useful
basis for further research.

On flushing the cock bird from four young in down on the
Mouettes Islands I was shown an example of his tenacity and
intelligence. I had taken the young birds away in my pocket
and had run back to the boat across a neck of land some
300 yards broad. The cock chased me a little way and then
disappeared. On reaching the sea, however, on the other
side of the small peninsula, I immediately saw the cock fly
around the point and make straight for me, and he stood and
chattered at me until we rowed away in the boat. The hen
put in no appearance at all.

Again, on one of the islands we watched a pair whose
behavior puzzled us, but soon discovered that there were
four young birds being looked after by the cock. The moment
he was flushed the young birds scattered in all directions,
and on our lying down again came back under the fatherly
wing. Before I discovered that the cock incubated in the
last stages I patiently watched a hen running about quite
unconcernedly for almost an hour, and then suddenly jumped
to the conclusion that the cock was sitting. When I got up
the hen gave the alarm note and I flushed the cock from
four chipping eggs.

A. L. V. Manniche (1910) writes:

The parents are very watchful against danger in the
breeding time and when the young ones are small. One of
them will keep a lookout from the summit of a large stone
or a rock while the other is brooding or guiding the young
ones. The bird on guard will discover an approaching enemy
at an incredibly long distance and rush toward him uttering
furious cries. Especially the skua (_Lestris longicauda_)
is a detested enemy of the turnstone. Every day I could
observe the hunting skuas pursued by turnstones. When one
pursuer returned to its district another would appear and
thus every skua was almost always accompanied by at least
one turnstone. Also toward the polar fox the turnstones
would betray great fear, and they would often join from
afar and swoop down on the hated enemy, uttering their
sharpest and most violent cries.

Toward the end of July the young ones were able to fly but
were, however, generally accompanied by the old female. The
young ones would often resort to the upper part of rather
high rocks while the old female incessantly crying and
anxiously flapping tried to divert my attention from them.
When the old female had left her offspring and the country,
these would immediately take to the coast and the mouths of
rivers like other young waders.

_Plumages._--The young turnstone in natal down is not brilliantly, yet distinctively, colored. The upper parts, including the sides of the head and neck, wings and thighs, vary from “cream buff” or “chamois” on the crown and wings to “olive buff” on the neck and flanks. The crown, back, wings, rump, and thighs are heavily spotted or broadly striped with black; the center of the crown is largely black and so are the lores; a broad space above the eyes and the forehead are “cream buff,” with a black streak in the middle of the latter. There is some whitish in the center of the back and the entire under parts are pure white.

In full juvenal plumage, Alaska birds in July, the crown and mantle are dark sepia or blackish brown, the feathers of the crown edged with sandy brown, those of the back broadly edged with “pinkish buff” or “cream buff” and the wing coverts still more broadly edged with “cinnamon buff”; the tertials are edged with “cinnamon”; the feathers of the rump, the tail coverts, and the tail are tipped with a buffy wash; the under parts are similar in pattern to those of the adult, but the black patches are browner and often show buffy tips. The sexes are practically alike in juvenal and winter plumages.

The first winter plumage is acquired by a partial body molt between August and November; it can be distinguished from the adult winter plumage by the presence of some retained tertials, scapulars, and wing coverts; also it is not so uniformly dark as the adult, is more streaked with buffy and whitish edgings on the head, neck, and back, and it has less black in the gorget. The two races are distinguishable in this plumage, _interpres_ being darker.

The first prenuptial molt begins in January; it is similar to that of the adult but is much less complete. I have seen a young bird in full wing molt in January and think that young birds renew their flight feathers before the first spring. The first nuptial plumage is, I believe, a nonbreeding plumage, as it is worn by birds which spend the summer far south of the breeding range. I have seen birds in this plumage, collected in Florida and Louisiana, in every month from April to August. This plumage resembles the adult nuptial, but the head is more streaked with dusky or black; and in the mantle, scapulars and wing coverts there is a mixture of new rufous feathers and both old and new blackish brown feathers. The sexes are recognizable in this plumage, the males being much brighter. A complete molt in August produces the adult winter plumage.

Adults have a complete postnuptial molt, from July to October, but mainly in August, when the wings are molted. They have a partial prenuptial molt from February to June, mainly in March and April, involving the body plumage, but not all the scapulars or wing coverts.

_Food._--The turnstone is mainly a maritime species and its favorite feeding grounds are the stony and sandy beaches along the seashore and the rocky promontories and islets on the coasts. But on its inland migrations it finds its food on the shores and beaches of the larger lakes and rivers. The turnstone derives its name from its well-known and conspicuous habit of turning over, with its short, stout bill and sturdy muscles, stones, shells, clods of earth, seaweed, and other objects in search for the dainty morsels of animal food that it finds beneath them. If the object is not too large the bird stoops down and overturns it with a quick jerk of the head and neck; but against a larger obstacle it places its breast and pushes with all its strength; it is surprising to see how large a stone or clod it can move. It also has a peculiar habit of rooting like a pig in piles of seaweed or in the open sand. Windrows of seaweed and other rubbish are generally full of sand fleas and various worms and insects and their larvae, where the turnstones and other waders find an abundant feast. Frank T. Noble (1904) has described this very well, as follows:

He would select a likely spot on the loosely packed moss
and go at his work with a vim and rapidity entirely
different from the other species. Underneath the bits of
weed, moss, and fragments of shell his sharp upturned bill
would swiftly go and a perfect shower of these would soon
be falling in front and beside him. Finding a morsel to his
taste he would devour it in much less time than it takes to
relate it, and the rooting and tossing of the bits into the
air would continue. At times quite sizeable fragments of
shell and pieces of moss more than an inch in length would
be thrown fully 7 or 8 inches above the bird’s head, and
this he would keep up, with scarcely an instant’s pause,
for a quarter of an hour and until he had excavated a pit
large enough to almost conceal his plump, mottled body.
Occasionally he would turn about in his tracks, but as a
rule he worked in one direction.

I have seen a similar method employed on a sand flat laid bare at low tide, where four or five turnstones were feeding, accompanied by sanderlings and peeps. The turnstones were digging holes in the wet sand, throwing out the sand for a distance of several inches, until the holes were big enough to admit the whole of a man’s fist and deep enough to conceal the bird’s head and neck. Meantime the sanderlings were standing close by and picking up some small objects thrown out, until driven away by savage attacks of the turnstone. On close examination I found a number of small, black snails and other minute mollusks in the sand thrown out. The stomach of one shot contained only the minute mollusks and some coarse sand.

Doctor Stejneger (1885) found turnstones feeding in large numbers on the killing grounds in the Commander Islands, “where thousands of putrified carcasses of the slain fur seals swarm with myriads of the white larvae of the flesh fly,” on which they grow very fat. Francis H. Allen tells me he has seen them feeding on rocks which are bare only at low tide and covered with barnacles. One that he watched--

sometimes simply picked its food up from among the
barnacles and rockweed, and sometimes it hammered away in
one spot like a woodpecker before getting its morsel. The
object hammered was evidently fixed. After the bird had
flown, I visited the spot and found many empty barnacle
shells--empty of barnacles, that is--some entirely empty
and others containing small snail-like mollusks with
dark-colored shells.

On the coast of South Carolina I have seen turnstones feeding on the beds of coon oysters and have watched them busily engaged in chasing the small fiddler crabs on the muddy banks of tidal creeks and on the mud lumps; they had to run very fast to catch the spry little animals and probably had to pick out the smallest ones. Mr. Wayne (1910) says: “On Capers Island it frequents live oak trees which are covered with small mussels, upon which it eagerly feeds. If some of the mussels happen to be on an inclined limb the birds walk, instead of flying, to reach them. I have seen as many as four of these, one behind the other, on a small limb out in the surf.”

Mr. Manniche (1910) says that just after their arrival in Greenland the turnstones feed mainly on vegetable food; the stomach of a bird taken on May 22 contained only remains of plants. Dr. Paul Bartsch (1922), referring to his visit to Midway Island, writes: “It was a decided surprise to us to find waders in bushes feeding upon berries, and yet this was the case here. Again and again we flushed bunches of turnstones from the dense _Scaevola_ thickets and watched them circle about for some time, only to realight in the tops of another clump of bushes. Specimens shot on Sand Island were filled with _Scaevola_ berries.”