Shoreline Charm: Sanderlings

Sanderlings and a Herring Gull

I'm used to admiring shoreline birds for their bare-legged resilience, their aeronautics, their adaptations to hunting underwater. Then I encountered a flock of Sanderlings migrating through Halibut Point this month. Picturing them next to a sturdy Herring Gull introduced the matter of charm.

Sanderling

Being diminutive and scarce favors the appeal of a Sanderling, as do its fine proportions. In truth there are smaller, tern-like gulls that I find more charming than the ubiquitous Herring Gull.



Sanderlings tiptoe around the tideline with scarcely any disruption to good order. They nibble. They accomplish their community life with a minimum of jostling or recrimination.

 
Part of their charm derives from the slightness of their resistance to a vast environment. They manage to be successful anti-heroes in a demanding world.

Sanderlings specialize in gleaning  tiny morsels where the churning surf plays out its final energies. They harvest edible bits and pieces cast into the shallows.

In this swirling environment they coordinate their eyes for opportunity and safety.

 
Their movements in unison are choreographed more by temperament than by negotiation.

Sanderlings and Ruddy Turnstone

Sanderlings live a split-second existence at the interface of rock, water and air. They translate among these elements with quick switches of their walk-run-fly modes.

 
Sanderlings suddenly take to the air. The mystery and synchronicity of their departure contributes to their allure, perhaps another aspect of charm.

They are the whitest of shorebirds. They disdain camouflage. They touch the earth on legs and bill resolutely black.

Sanderlings seem both astonishing and inevitable in their niche. They will pass through again in the spring.

As the spritely Sanderlings moved south the first Purple Sandpiper appeared at Halibut Point to consider winter residence on our shores.

Purple Sandpiper

We will praise this chunky bantam for enlivening harsh days along the sea but charm has flown off with the last of the Sanderlings.