two feet short!

Every year my home town of Deal, Kent sees the arrival of Turnstones. This year is no exception and a small group has arrived to feed along the prom and shoreline. There were 5 birds this morning and whilst taken shots I noticed that 2 (40% of the group) of them had feet missing. The injuries look old and seemed to have healed well. The birds seemed healthy and unconcerned. The injuries could have happened thousands of miles away at the birds breeding grounds and may have been caused by fishing lines. I very much hope that our local fishermen do not discard their unwanted lines on our beaches, if it happens again to the 2 birds in question they wont have a leg to stand on!

Tony

Nikon d300
nikon 300mm f2.8 + 1.7TC
iso 400
400th sec
f9
just about full frame

A good image that demonstrates one aspect of why I have such an interest and admiration for birds; they never fail to impress me with the way they have the will to survive, whatever fate befalls them.
The ability to deal with severe weather and all that mother nature throws at them is amazing enough, but if you or I lost a foot it would take all manner of medical care, assistance with getting food and help to get through it all etc, and yet this hardy chap has managed to carry on despite such a dreadful injury, astonishing.

Good point well illustrated Tony.
We've had a great Tit with a stump for a month or two now and he still manages to (hang on !)
to the nut bags etc. We had a Marsh tit last year which lasted at least three months.
You would think they would be the first to get predated but it doesn't seem to work like the books say !
Cheers
JohnR

I think quite a few waders lose their feet due to shellfish. I have seen on a number of occasions Godwits with mussels clamped right over their feet at the Belfast Harbour Reserve.

I think Craig has made a good point, thats not really something I would have thought about......

Tony

Never seen a one legged Turnstone, very nice image and he sure looks comfortable.
Rene de Heer

Hi Tony

Interesting image but thankfully the bird looks fine. We all look much of the time to get as low as possible but I am wondering whether or not in this instance a slightly higher view point might have produced a a more uniform BG. That said still a nice capture!

David

Hi David, I have loads of images of the Turnstones from Deal. I used this shot to show the birds disability, if I had gone much higher I would have lost the impact of the missing leg/foot

Tony

Nice one Tony. Some people would have probably discarded this one re the missing foot but it does serve to illustrate well how birds can and do adapt.

Major.

Hi Tony,

Now that’s what I call hopping mad!

A great documentary/reportage type image!

I remember having a disfigured beak last winter with no adverse affect!

Hi Tony, I have just sent around to my colleagues a very recent article from the Maldon News (Essex), that showed the rescue of a Red-shank with an oyster attached to it's leg. This does happen a lot actually and to even more species than you would think. Another colleague of mine has written a short paper on incidents of newts being caught by freshwater muscles.. We often encounter such incidents in the amphibian world as they tread on the substrate at the bottom of pools only to be clamped by the bi-valves.. I guess this could be the same problem in birds...

The shot illustrates this problem nicely, thanks for sharing..

Brett.