12 TSH Es ASU ID2U BrOUN? = BsUs ae ee 
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proached were large flocks of sparrow-sized birds, the sanderlings. We see 
sanderlings in migration in smaller numbers in Illinois, but they seem like 
different birds on the coast. They are so much a part of the movement of 
the waves. They feed at the edge of the surf and I like to watch their 
little black legs twinkle as they run back and forth with the advancing 
and receding waves. At a distance they are like white pebbles washing on 
the sands. They fly in unison, too, very close to the surface of the waves, 
shifting and turning, dipping into the trough and rising over the crests 
‘like a scarf waving in the wind.” Nowhere in bird literature and seldom 
in portraiture do I find comment on the amusing attribute which both 
distinguishes and cartoons the sanderling — the way he goosesteps! 
Between the godwits and sanderlings were other small birds, almost in- 
visible against the sand and rocks — semi-palmated plover, like miniature 
killdeer, the color of wet sand; occasionally a snowy plover, white like the 
rocks. 
In the foreground, wading far out in the surf, were a few willets, more 
slender than the godwits, plain blue-gray until they fly. Then they surprise 
you by flashing a beautiful black and white pattern in their wings. On — 
alighting they stand poised a moment with their wings stretched high 
overhead, like elongated butterflies. 
These birds are vocal; they always fly up calling: harsh, burry notes 
of the godwits, full of consonants; plaintive cries of the black-bellied plo- 
ver and sand-peeps; bell-like music of the curlews and willets reminiscent 
of our yellow-legs. 
Out beyond the willets and beyond the long lines of breakers, silently 
riding the swells of the ocean, were the red-throated loons, They are misty, 
gray and white silhouettes in the distance, but their tip-tilted bills appear 
in binoculars and identify them. Beyond the loons are the great kelp beds 
and they are black with birds. They were too far for my 7x85 glasses to 
identify, but those who know them say there are scoters and other diving 
ducks, and the marine birds who spend their lives at sea: fulmars, shear- 
waters, petrels; sometimes a rare, lone wanderer from a far land. 
Still farther out one can see the whales blowing and the porpoises play- 
ing up and down the coast and hear seals barking. And there are groups 
of fishing smacks with hovering fiocks of gulls. Great twisted stalks of kelp 
break off and wash ashore and in their meshes may. be hundreds of squirm- 
ing baby octopuses. Beachcombing for all the odd marine life thrown up 
by the waves is the popular local nature hobby. 
Overhead in the updraft from the cliffs sail the gulls and pelicans. Half 
a mile up the beach in a secluded place, gulls like to settle on the sand in 
a flock of a hundred or so, and among them I could usually find six or 
seven different species. Perhaps it was just because my eyes followed him 
that the big dark-mantled western gull seemed most abundant. He is a 
beauty! His breast and head are like snow against the slate gray of his 
mantle; his bill is a clear yellow splotched with red and black at the tip; 
and his legs look so clean and pink. 
I thought he was handsomer than the striking black, white and red 
Heermann’s gull, “handsomest of the gulls,’ which comes up from Mexico, 
