A messenger from the sands

Ruddy Turnstone - The Hall of Einar - photograph (c) David Bailey (not the)

There’s a Ruddy Turnstone in Knott End-on-Sea. Beautiful, aren’t they? Ruddy Turnstones breed in the far Arctic and along the Canadian coast yet spend the rest of their time in coastal locations across the world, on almost every beach available. You can see Ruddy Turnstones on every rocky shore in Africa, the Middle East, India, South-East Asia, Australia, South and North America, the Atlantic coast of Europe and the UK. Widespread seems too inadequate a word for their global reach.

The Ruddy Turnstone’s scientific name is Arenaria interpres. The genus name arenaria is from the Latin arenarius, which means ‘inhabiting sand’, from arena, which means ‘sand’. (An arena – it’s a flat area of sand.) The specific name interpres means ‘messenger’, related to the word interpreter.

Ruddy Turnstones are messengers from the sands.

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