Migrating Sandpipers
Bad photo, but an amazing event. Yesterday I went to the Minas Basin for the migration of the semipalmated sandpipers – an annual highlight of my summers in Nova scotia.
At first the beach looks completely covered in pebbles, but then, the keen observer notes that the pebbles are moving and the air is full of delicate cheeps. As the tide gradually creeps out (and it’s that amazing 50-foot Bay of Fundy tide I keep going on about) the pebbles separate and become hundreds of thousands of miniature birds. They’re here for the annual smorgasbord - the semipalmated sandpiper version of Burning Man – which happens every August, when the tiny mud shrimp are at their most succulent and plentiful.
The birds arrive in swarms from the Arctic and stop off here, on this specific beach at Grand Pre. to “feed up” on their way to South America for the winter. It has been this way for centuries; the Acadians recorded the event in the 1600’s. These tiny creatures will roughly double their weight over a couple of weeks, in preparation for the 72 hour, non-stop, transoceanic flight along their well established flyway. On the way back in the spring, the favored spot is Delaware Beach in New Jersey where the horseshoe crabs are spawning.
The birds’ main business on this beach is resting and feeding, but occasionally, on a whim, they will fly. And that mass movement is one of the most awesome sights I’ve seen in nature – awesome and incapable of being photographed, at least with my poor equipment.
In response to some mysterious and undetectable signal, from somewhere within their midst, they will rise as one and suddenly the beach is completely bare and the air is alive with a whir of tiny bodies, soaring and turning in a perfectly choreographed ballet that lasts for mere moments. How on earth do they know when to change direction? But change they do, exposing their glowing white undersides to the sun in simultaneous splendor – much like a long, shimmering silk scarf being swirled across the horizon of the sea.
Interesting side note…. Like many birds, the sandpipers mate for life. But they fly south with friends, live separately in South America (mainly French Guyana and Brazil where, apparently social mores are pretty lax) and then reconnect with their mates 3,000 miles later, back on the Arctic tundra when the holiday is over and it’s time to make the babies.
Migrating Sandpipers
Bad photo, but an amazing event. Yesterday I went to the Minas Basin for the migration of the semipalmated sandpipers – an annual highlight of my summers in Nova scotia.
At first the beach looks completely covered in pebbles, but then, the keen observer notes that the pebbles are moving and the air is full of delicate cheeps. As the tide gradually creeps out (and it’s that amazing 50-foot Bay of Fundy tide I keep going on about) the pebbles separate and become hundreds of thousands of miniature birds. They’re here for the annual smorgasbord - the semipalmated sandpiper version of Burning Man – which happens every August, when the tiny mud shrimp are at their most succulent and plentiful.
The birds arrive in swarms from the Arctic and stop off here, on this specific beach at Grand Pre. to “feed up” on their way to South America for the winter. It has been this way for centuries; the Acadians recorded the event in the 1600’s. These tiny creatures will roughly double their weight over a couple of weeks, in preparation for the 72 hour, non-stop, transoceanic flight along their well established flyway. On the way back in the spring, the favored spot is Delaware Beach in New Jersey where the horseshoe crabs are spawning.
The birds’ main business on this beach is resting and feeding, but occasionally, on a whim, they will fly. And that mass movement is one of the most awesome sights I’ve seen in nature – awesome and incapable of being photographed, at least with my poor equipment.
In response to some mysterious and undetectable signal, from somewhere within their midst, they will rise as one and suddenly the beach is completely bare and the air is alive with a whir of tiny bodies, soaring and turning in a perfectly choreographed ballet that lasts for mere moments. How on earth do they know when to change direction? But change they do, exposing their glowing white undersides to the sun in simultaneous splendor – much like a long, shimmering silk scarf being swirled across the horizon of the sea.
Interesting side note…. Like many birds, the sandpipers mate for life. But they fly south with friends, live separately in South America (mainly French Guyana and Brazil where, apparently social mores are pretty lax) and then reconnect with their mates 3,000 miles later, back on the Arctic tundra when the holiday is over and it’s time to make the babies.