Both the weather and the Willet cooperated for this photo!
This column appeared in the Recorder on July 29, the Gazette on July 31 and the Eagle on August 3.
Sometimes the photos and the ideas pile up so quickly that it can take weeks to clear the decks. Such is the case this week. I went to Cape Cod at the beginning of July and I had three wonderful visits to a magical place called First Encounter Beach. Each day offered different weather conditions and different birding challenges and I selected the best photo from each of those three days to share with you. The first day produced a wonderful photo of a Least Tern fishing. The second day produced a photo of a Great Blue Heron catching fish on a very foggy morning. The third day is the day that I share with you today.
Of the three mornings at First Encounter Beach it was the third one that had the nicest weather. But for the changing tides this might have been my most productive day of photography, but the tides determine everything at First Encounter. When the tide is out you can find acres of sand flats that are exposed and ready to be explored. When the tide is in, however, the beach becomes utterly unremarkable. So, when I arrived at the beach on the day of my final visit I was a little disappointed to find that the tide was on the way out, but not too far.
There were high clouds that morning, which promised wonderful lighting conditions for photography. Direct sunlight is often too harsh and unless you have the sun squarely at your back, the shadows caused by the light can ruin a photo. But on a morning when the sky is gray, but you can sill see the sun as a spot of lighter gray, the light is sift and the photos will be filled with saturated color. So as long as the birds cooperated, I knew I was going to get some good shots.
With limited sand flats exposed I wasn’t going to have to go too far from shore, which was good. The problem? There were no birds to be seen anywhere. This, to me, seemed unprecedented. I couldn’t remember a time that I visited these sand flats and found no one home, but then again I had never visited this beach so early in the year. Most of the shorebirds that would soon cover the flats were still up in Canada on their breeding grounds.
So I decided to just go for a quiet walk along the flats and enjoy the feeling of the sand under my bare feet. Any time I encountered a shallow pool of water there was the thrill of feeling the cool water wash over my toes and it was quiet. I was the only person on the sand and there wasn’t a manmade sound to be heard. It was soothing, quiet paradise.
Then, as though the Photo Gods had been impressed by dogged tenacity, a lone bird came flying in from the salt marsh behind the dunes. I didn’t need to see the bird to identify it as a Willet (Tringa semipalmata) because I recognized its loud call. What was very satisfying was the fact that the bird flew directly over my head and then landed in front of me. Anyone unfamiliar with Nikonus and Iso might have said this was simply goo luck, but the gods smiled upon me and sent this one bird to keep me company. I would still have to earn a good photo, but they provided me with every advantage.
If you happened upon a Willet that was quietly feeding on a beach, then you might see it as an unremarkable gray bird. Well, you’d be correct. Aside from the bluish-gray legs there is little to make a Willet stand out in a crowd. But once the bird takes flight then you will see bold white stripes that start at the bird’s ribcage and extend all the way out the leading edges of the wing. It is a key field mark for identifying a Willet and it was also a very useful plumage that was exploited during some research that I participated in.
It was 1988 and I was a 20-year old student getting some experience on a summer job in Maryland’s Chincoteague Bay. I was a field tech for the Maryland Colonial Waterbird Project and one of the researchers had decided to focus his attention on Willets. Because of the broad white stripes on the wings of these birds it was determined that individual birds could be identified if color could be added to their wings. So, Willets were captured using nets and then non-toxic dyes were used to color the white wing bars. This was better than using colored leg bands because, as wading birds, the Willet is often in water where the bands are not visible.
I played my little game of “slow approach” with the willet and, as per the will of the gods, the Willet was calm and accepting of my presence. The soft light of the low, early-morning sun made everything bright and the mellow mood of the bird made it comfortable enough to go about its business. The bird even let its wings droop a bit; exposing a hint of the white wing bar that stands out so clearly when the bird is in flight.
I spent a wonderful hour enjoying the quiet of the morning and the company of this one accommodating bird. Not only were the day’s weather conditions pleasant, but so too was the time spent reminiscing about an adventure that occurred more than 30 years ago. It was some top-shelf Nature Bathing and by the time I left I was completely and utterly satisfied that I had done my best to take advantage of this wonderful place. Next time I have to go in the middle of August when the flats will be covered with birds headed south for the winter.