At Low Tide

Twice a day gravitational forces bring the water level in Folly Cove down to a point where foraging birds have their best chance of finding food. Periodically this happens fairly early in the morning when their appetites are sharpest and just maybe luminous light will prevail. A perfect coincidence of these conditions is a photo naturalist's delight.

Spotted Sandpiper and Red-breasted Merganser

Avian hunters congregate in shallow water and on exposed rocks to look for easy prey.

Great Egret

Greater Yellowlegs

This Greater Yellowlegs, an outsized sandpiper that customarily stays in estuarial mudflats, happened upon the sandy area visible in the Cove at very low tide.

Spotted Sandpiper

Some of the Spotted Sandpipers ambled up into the intertidal zone looking for small crustaceans in the wrack and in moist crevices.

American Robin

Those prospects attracted not only shorebirds but upland opportunists like this robin.

American Goldfinches

Goldfinches also hunted for tiny invertebrates stranded by the receding waters.

Wild Turkey

A Wild Turkey emerged like a Jurassic creature from the wood line to see what the briny meadow might have to offer.

Common Eider pair

The possibility of plucking mollusks and crustaceans from the shoreline eddies appealed to these eiders that would otherwise have to work harder diving into the depths.

Female Long-tailed Duck

Another diving duck floated serenely further out in the Cove. It may already have satisfied its hunger in the shallow water. Most of its kind have long since departed for northern breeding grounds. The greatest variety of maritime bird sightings will have to wait until cold weather drives the migrants and their maturing progeny back to our coastal waters in the fall.