Turnstones

I spent half an hour this afternoon surrounded by these wonderful little birds.

They are also known as Tanglepickers or Flipbricks, but whatever, turn stones is what they do best. I think it's their ability to turn over stones of almost their own weight to find their food of molluscs, insects or barnacles which means they don't seem to be endangered as some wading species are.

Most of these are probably here on their winter holiday from Canada or Greenland, where they will return in Spring to breed, some of course may be using the UK as a further lift-off point to cross into Europe.