Month: May 2025

Finding Peace in Birding: A Unique Form of Meditation

It’s always exciting to photograph Whimbrels and Red Knots because they are bigger and rarer than most shorebirds, like Western Sandpipers or Dunlin, but my favorite part of birding during Spring or Fall Migration is actually when smaller sandpipers completely surround me .

To make that happen, you need to be standing on the beach long before they arrive and stand very still, becoming part of the scenery. On this visit, that meant we were on the beach by 6:00 AM, just after sunrise.

While the Whimbrels, Dowitchers, Red Knots, and Black-Bellied Plovers maintained their distance feeding at the water’s edge,

A group of shorebirds, likely Whimbrels or similar species, foraging on a sandy beach at sunrise, with soft golden light reflecting on the water.

Western Sandpipers covered the beach, skittering here and there, eating only God-Knows-What.

A shorebird with brown and white plumage stands on wet rocks near the water's edge.

They come so close that you almost need a zoom lens to fit them into the frame.

A small, brown and white shorebird standing in shallow water, looking down at its reflection.

You obviously don’t have to stand perfectly still, or you wouldn’t be able to get pictures like this, but sometimes something as subtle as a camera click can startle them into flight. And it should go without saying that the last thing you want to do while birding is scare them into flight since these little guys migrate up to 6,000 miles to breed.

A bird walking along the edge of a shallow water body, with its reflection visible in the water.

It’s not unusual to end up with more blurry shots than focused because they seldom slow down, but sometimes you get lucky, and they will pose for a series of shots like this Dunlin and Western Sandpiper did.

Two shorebirds foraging in shallow water, reflecting their images on the water's surface.

I wish I had experienced the Spring or Fall Migration when I worked in Aberdeen nearly sixty years ago. If I had, I hope that I would’ve returned to the area much more often than I have over the years, because it is a powerful experience with or without a camera. For me, it is probably the ultimate meditation, one that calls to mind a saying we practice in Spring Forest Qigong, one that I translate as “I am in the universe, the universe is in me, we are One.”

Birdwatching at Bottle Beach: Searching for Red Knots

Although it was the mention of Whimbrels that encouraged me to go to the beach after the main Spring Migration push, when I got to Bottle Beach the few birders I met were all looking for Red Knots. I’ll have to admit that despite numerous visits I don’t remember ever getting a photo of one. As it turned out, I might actually have gotten a bad photo of one the night before, but that hardly counts since I thought I was getting a shot of another dowitcher.

It wasn’t until we were about to leave that Leslie thought she spotted a small flock of them at the other end of the beach. Unlike a lot of other shorebirds, they all seemed to be feeding out in the water, making it tough to get very close without waders.

A flock of shorebirds wading through shallow water with a reflective surface.

I did manage to get a little closer, though, and with an 800mm lens setting and some additional cropping and got some pictures that I was happy with.

Five shorebirds feeding in shallow water, showcasing a mix of orange and brown plumage against a reflective surface.

Waiting quietly for the tide to continue to bring the birds closer and closer, at least the ones intent on feeding. I loved this shot that revealed the delicate feather pattern on its head, something I had never noticed before.

A shorebird standing in shallow water with its reflection visible. The bird has a brownish-orange body and is looking down at the water.

Finally, I constructed a collage that did a better job of conveying this part of the day than any single shot could.

A Red Knot bird in flight with several Red Knots walking in the background on a snowy surface.

I’ve done shots like this quite a while ago, and I’d like to do more pictures like this, but it takes quite a bit more thought and time.

It’s Tough to Delete Good Shots of Rarely Seen Birds Like Whimbrels

I don’t see Whimbrels very often and was particularly disappointed when we didn’t see them during our recent visit to Bodega Bay. Reading that Whimbrels had been spotted at Bottle Beach several days before helped me decide it was worth going to the beach even if the main shorebird migration was over.

I was disappointed with the poor shot of a Whimbrel I got the previous night, so I was excited to get much better shots early the next morning, even if they were taken at a considerable distance.

This shot is heavily cropped, but even at 800 mm, the Whimbrel seemed remarkably sharp.

A wading bird with a long beak standing in shallow water, with other birds blurred in the background.

It certainly helped that the sun was at our backs, and since it was right after sunrise, the light was still slightly golden.

I’ve managed to get quite close to Whimbrels at Bodega Bay, but they’ve always stayed further out at Bottle Beach, so I was pleasantly surprised when this one kept getting closer,

A shorebird walking along a shallow water edge, reflected in the water.

closer,

A brown-speckled bird standing on wet ground near water, with a long curved beak.

and, finally, so close that I barely had to crop the photo.

A curlew walking along a sandy shore near water, showcasing its long curved beak and patterned feathers.

Usually when you take a sequence of shots over time you end up simply deleting most of the early shots because the shots get better and better as the bird gets closer. I didn’t do that this time, though, because I liked the first shot because it showed how much larger a Whimbrel is than a Dowitcher, and the second shot had a nice reflection.

Golden Moments at Bottle Beach: A Birdwatcher’s Delight

Although the first part of our evening visit to Bottle Beach didn’t go too well, photographically speaking, things got much better near the end of our visit. It probably wasn’t a whole hour, but it was definitely golden, and the photographs taken were spectacular — or at least they seemed that way to me.

None of the Marbled Godwits I saw not too long ago in Bodega Bay looked nearly as golden as this Godwit did.

A bird with a long beak foraging in shallow water, reflecting the surrounding environment.

Normally, I try to avoid extremely dark backgrounds, but here it seems to accentuate the gold colors in the Godwit, the Dowitchers,

Two shorebirds wading in shallow water, with their reflections visible in the water.

and the Dunlin.

Three shorebirds foraging in shallow water, with distinctive brown and white plumage, casting reflections in the wet surface.

And the later it got, the more golden the moment became

Three shorebirds foraging in shallow water, reflecting in the surface.

until it was time to go back to the motel before returning to the beach at the next high tide, 7:00 AM the following morning.