Black-headed Gull while takeoff
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Salzwiesen und Watt von Langeoog, Deutschland
Italien, Kampanien, Pozzuoli - Oktober 2022
Wadden Sea bokeh photobombed by a turnstone.
Turnstones are fascinating birds. They are much smaller than the picture suggests, only little bigger than sanderlings. They have a wide range of diet, including mussels (in the picture) but also insects, other bird's eggs, and even carrion. Surprisingly, some of these little birds migrate over ten thousand kilometers between the breeding grounds in Northern Siberia and Alaska and the southern island of New Zealand.
Die App-Lernplattform für Ornithologie
Die Orniversity-App im Apple App Store
apps.apple.com/de/app/orniversity/id1616842712
Die Orniversity-App im Google Play Store
play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=de.orniversity.educ...
Die App-Lernplattform für Ornithologie
Die Orniversity-App im Apple App Store
apps.apple.com/de/app/orniversity/id1616842712
Die Orniversity-App im Google Play Store
play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=de.orniversity.educ...
On our visit to the Northern Sea earlier this year, we saw a few (not many) Oystercatchers and what surprised me was that all of them had slightly crossed bills, like the one above. It was so common that I had to check my memory and confirm in a guidebook that usually Oystercatchers have straight bills. There is literature about different shapes and lengths of the bills in European Oystercatchers, and the relationship to food preference (pointed bills in Oystercatcher populations that prefer worms, more chisel-shaped ones in populations that hammer open clams). Unfortunately I have not found any scientific paper on a cross-billed morph. There are a few reports in birding forums of single birds, some of them with even more of a crossed bill than the bird in the picture. All of the Oystercatchers I have seen have been busy cracking open razor clams, and other mussels (I have not seen them attempt to hammer them open). So maybe this bill shape provides an advantage there, similar to the advantage that pine crossbills get from the shape and form of their mandibles when opening up pine cones.
Étang de l'Or, Candillargues, Provence, Frankreich
Étang du Méjean, Montpellier, Provence, Frankreich
Rhonedelta / Camargue, Provence Cote-d'Azur, Frankreich
Plage de Piémanson, Arles, Provence, Frankreich
Passader See, Plön, Schleswig-Holstein
Anse des Cascades, La Réunion
Plage de Piémanson, Arles, Provence, Frankreich
Laboe, Kreis Plön, Schleswig-Holstein
Bislicher Ley / Reesereyland, Rees, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Deutschland
Axiosdelta, Mazedonien, Griechenland
