Ruddy Turnstone - the bulldozer of the beach. Watching these birds seek out their prey is an awe inspiring experience. They have no trouble dislodging rocks the size of an adult males fist from the sticky, grey mud of the intertidal zone; often flipping them end over end, searching the hole left in the mud and then inspecting the faces and hollows of the rock itself in search of a tasty morsel. I had long believed that they wedged their closed bill under rocks in order to prise them out of the mud, but look closely at these images and you'll see that they are able to clamp their upper and lower mandible on the edges of a rock before giving it the heave ho'. Tonka tough.
