Belize Treasures - Ruddy Turnstone

I'm not very good at identifying shorebirds, especially in the Caribbean, because there are so many, and a lot of them look so similar. Seriously, there are tons of sandpipers, snipes, godwits, phalaropes, curlews, dowitchers, and more. Sound like a foreign language? I agree.

But this one, the RUDDY TURNSTONE, is one I can recognize because it is so striking in appearance. Hmm... Ruddy Turnstone sounds like it should be the name of a character in an old western. But it's actually a shorebird seen on the beaches of coral and mangrove islands (called "cayes") off the shore of Belize.

This little bird has an interesting habit of flipping over rocks, shells, and other debris to find crabs and other invertebrates, which it snarfs up with gusto.

The SECOND PHOTO is a ruddy turnstone that we found while walking along the beach. At first I thought it was dead, but I noticed its eyes were open. I gently picked it up to put it on its feet, then we saw that its wing was hopelessly broken. It was able to hobble off for a short distance. It would be unrealistic to hope that the bird might survive. Maybe a gust of wind caught it off guard and drove it into the sand dune, or something like that.

Photos by Stan C. Smith