The beach

You walk the same beach every day and see the same birds…. except now. Suddenly, they’re gone. The gulls are still here, but there is hardly a sanderling to be seen. Not a willet, plover, red knot, or turnstone to be found. They were all here the first week of January. It’s too soon to head north. Wonder when they’ll be back.

You walk the same beach every day and every day it’s different. One day will be hundreds of sand dollars, the next day nothing. One day starfish the next day none. White jellyfish. Purple jellyfish. Chevrons. Cockleshells. Barnacles. Ghost shrimp. Sometimes the differences are subtle, but it’s always different.

We drove the National Seashore beach last week with John and Jo. We drove it this week with Ron and Linda. Both times there were plenty of birds there, although this week we only saw one small plover. Hard to perfect our revised plover identification skills when all we see is one.