104 
THE CONDOR 
Vol. XVIII 
crustacean he was, with reason, so afraid that some less successful hunter— 
be he Gull or brother Sanderling — might get it away from him that he would 
run distractedly this way and that, or start and run so fast you could scarcely 
see his black legs moye until he found that his fellows were attending to their 
own affairs, when he laid his quarry on the ground and shook and prepared 
it for swallowing. Sometimes one or two would be seen taking a bath, duck- 
ing down and spattering and splashing with as much zest as if they did not 
spend their lives beside the water. 
Unlike the Surf-birds whom you naturally think of as silent and indi- 
vidual, you think of the Sanderlings and Snowy Plovers as talkative flocks. 
When the tide was high one morning a band of about sixty Sanderlings were 
resting up on the soft sand back of high water mark making a pretty pic- 
ture, standing in close serried ranks all facing the ocean as if “in meeting”. 
One by one they started and ran back down the aisles, till nearly all had 
shifted places. Then they rose and flew in a close flock with beautiful evolu- 
tions, their changing angles giving changing effects — one moment with wide 
wings they looked dark ; the next, with wings at an angle, delicate as a 
shadow ; then by a swift turn, all white. Flying from you with the light full on 
them the wings seemed to be carrying a white globe. As they circled and 
wheeled and circled in a close flock their soft social twitterings added to the 
charm of the picture. On alighting a large part of the flock ran down to the 
water together, then turned and ran back ahead of the incoming wave, back 
and forth till they tired of it, for the surf was high and the bank steep to be 
running up and down all the time. So they withdrew to the level sand above 
and stood in little groups resting, some preening themselves, some sitting 
down with bills over their backs. 
One afternoon there must have been seventy-five or a hundred Sander- 
lings on the beach feeding, resting in social groups, or when flushed swirling 
out in graceful curves over the water and shore. Once at the full of the 
moon when the tide was very low and the ocean was a water color of soft 
shimmering grays and yellows, the surf broke so far out that the voice of the 
ocean was soft and soothing. Mounds of fresh kelp left by the waves were 
all tracked around by the birds, and as I looked from a distance across the 
wide expanse of gently sloping shore, Godwits and white-breasted Gulls stood 
along the water line and small Sanderlings almost invisible except as their 
white breasts were lit by the sun, ran after the waves, suggesting pearls rolling 
over the sunlit sand. 
The birds that went over to spend high tide in the marshes, at the turn of 
the tide would fly back to be on hand for what low tide would bring, and 
one day I found a gathering of twenty-five Surf-birds, about fifty Godwits, 
and five Willets standing on the shore with the little Sanderlings ready to go 
crabbing. 
Along the beach there were generally a few Gulls, mainly confusing 
mottled immature ones, standing around among the waders. One day 1 
counted four Gulls to about thirty Godwits, again one Gull to forty Godwits, 
and another time one Gull, two Willets, two Surf-birds and about thirty God- 
wits, on the beach together. Occasionally a Gull would make an iinexpected 
run down the beach for something, and if the water dashed up too close would 
cry out peevishly and fly back. Among the immature Gulls now and then 
there was one of the big adult Western Gulls whose snowy head, body, and 
