A few birds from the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta.
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Black Turnstone:Black Turnstone Ciilmak or Qiuracetaaq Like so many other birds in spring, these rather large stubby looking sandpipers bring life and texture to the air. With their striking black and white (pied) wing pattern, the males fly round and round their nesting territory displaying for their mates. Both adults also participate in a high-speed zigzag “catch me if you can” chase, with the female returning to the same spot where her flight began. Since turnstones nest colonially, there are usually several of them displaying and chasing at the same time, and the rapid-fire whistling of the male’s wings brings an eerie but wonderful music to their nesting ground. I used to watch these fascinating birds during walks in the tundra near Scammon Bay just before school let out in May. They had just returned from many months of wintering along the Pacific coast all the way down to Mexico. There I often saw them almost constantly in motion on surf-lined black rocks hunting for crustaceans, shellfish and marine worms. When they finally arrive back on the west coast of Alaska in spring to breed and nest they feed much more on insects as well as their usual fare and some seeds and berries. One of the things that makes this sandpiper so interesting is that, not only do the adults often come back to the same nesting site each year, they also nest with the same mates, making them monogamous like most of us. Since this is the case, the adults don’t have a prolonged mating ritual, but the male does keep up his whistling circular flight throughout the incubation period except when he is helping his mate build the nest and incubate the eggs. The nest is nothing fancy, just a shallow depression on the ground lined with grasses and usually located near the edge of a brackish pond. Sure evidence that the male participates in incubation is his brood patch, which is the same as that of the female. This is the lower part of their stomach skin that has shed its down feathers and has a rich blood supply at this time of year for keeping the eggs warm. The number of eggs we’re talking about is usually four and they range in color from yellowish-green to olive with dark brown splotches on them. After a little more than three weeks of sharing the work of incubation, the first sounds are heard of little birds pecking their way out of their oval prisons. When the downy young have all hatched and fluff-dried their tiny feathers, they leave the nest with their parents and start searching for food. Both parents make sure they’re safe but do not feed them. The mother bird leaves the family after about two weeks and heads slowly south to her wintering grounds, which leaves only the dad to tend them until they finally take wing in another 10 days or so. Then dad takes off for warmer latitudes, leaving his brood to fatten up till they too are strong enough to fly to their winter habitat in the far south. A good reason to put on plenty of fat is so they can shortcut their way over the Gulf of Alaska, flying southeast directly across the water from the Alaska Peninsula rather than taking the long way around the coast as their parents did while migrating north in spring. Something I’ve noticed about turnstones over the years is their excellent eyesight. They see much better than many other bird species, spotting an incoming predator such as a jaeger far earlier than even my eyes can. As I indicated in the title, these sandpipers have two Yupik names that I’m familiar with: Ciilmak, loosely referring to their ability to turn stones, as in English; and Qiuracetaaq, meaning “the little bird with the dark (blue) color.” Its scientific name, Arenaria melanocephala, means the “dark-headed bird that likes to feed (sometimes) in sand.” Interesting, eh?  |
