Shorebird ID, California - help please. (1 Viewer)

[Freezo]

Can anyone help with Id for this bird, photographed (badly!) from the harbour wall at La Jolla, CA, at low tide, midday-ish, early February.
Apologies for the poor photo quality, and the terrible angle - almost from directly above which means no legs visible. I'm a beginner birder & a Brit with almost no knowledge of American birds so I wouldn't like to hazard a guess - if pressed I'd go for Black Turnstone.
Thanks in anticipation,

Fraser

 

[StuartReeves]

Black Turnstone looks like a good call to me.

Stuart

 

[Pluvius]

Could it be a Surfbird?

 

[tim.birdboy]

I agree with Black Turnstone, overall charcoal plumage, with slight light markings on the tertials, a thick, all black, slightly up-turned bill, and a faint supercillium. A Surfbird would be much a much lighter gray all-over, with an orange lower mandible.

Surfbird

Black Turnstone

 

[emupilot]

I also agree with Black Turnstone, which is common on rocky shorelines in winter.

 

[Freezo]

Thanks folks.

That trip to San Diego was my first to the US except for a jaunt across the border from Canada at Niagara as a kid. It wasn’t a birding trip, but I managed to pick up a National Geographic Guide to the Birds of N. America for just $6 (I think there was a new edition due out & this was the old one, but good enough for my interested amateur rather than serious birder purposes.)
The eyebrow was worrying me. The black turnstone illustrated in that guide showed a definite eyebrow, while the surfbird one didn’t, but a quick scan through the Bird Forum galleries illustrates the danger of relying only on one illustration in one guide.