snowy plovers

Today was an absolutely gorgeous day at Ocean Beach. I went for a walk on the beach in the early evening and found myself drawn to what looked like a bunch of neatly arranged white rocks in the distance. Or maybe someone was having fun collecting sand dollars and propping them up in the sand. As I walked toward the formation, I noticed the bird tracks in the sand. Bigger footprints were interspersed among the thousands of small ones. At that moment, I regretted leaving my camera at home. With the sun positioned low in the sky, the lighting would have been perfect for a close-up shot of the tracks.

I spent the next fifteen minutes observing the flock of little shore birds, staying motionless in hopes that they'd come closer. I didn't know what they were, but I had seen a few of them before. Their bodies are brownish except for their white bellies, so it's difficult to see them unless you're looking at them from the front or sides. In my previous sighting, I was walking behind one of them for a while without even knowing it. What I love about them is the way that they move. Their feet move so fast when they're walking, yet their heads stay very still. It's absolutely mesmerizing.

Watching the flock, I was struck by the way their collective movement reminded me of water. Taken as a whole, the flock seemed to flow from one place to another. When a larger bird decided to land in their midst, it resulted in an avian ripple effect: little birds moving away from the big bird in concentric circles. My reward for waiting patiently for them to get closer was hearing how noisy they were. The sound of the surf drowns out their chirping unless you're pretty close. I wonder what they were saying to each other.