Foul Tidings with Good Feelins in the Evenins

Salutations Bird Friends. 

I first have to preface this post with some unfortunate news. Last weekend, whilst pursuing my latent dreams of becoming a professional soccer player vis-a-vis Friday night rec. league soccer, I injured my knee pretty seriously. The kneecap on the left looks more or less normal--not the world's most attractive knee, to be sure, but not the least. The knee on the right is swollen, misshapen, gross, and...lost.

 Here is some photo-documentation of the cumulative effects of the injury: strained veins and massive bruising. At this point, the swelling is pretty bad and the leg is more or less useless.

The intent here is not to facilitate a pity party, though PARTY ON as needed, but to explain the paucity of birding posts that will be coming in the next few weeks or more. I have photos from a recent trip to Florida, the intention of which was to attend a friend's wedding, but any contemporary hiking and birding is at a standstill. Hopefully I can avoid surgery and a longer lay-up.

So, moving on to nicer, more pretty things, I'll start with some of the first scenes from my wife's and my Florida trip in early May. We landed in Ft. Meyers and drove to Naples first thing, hoping to catch the sunset and some beach time during our first evening. Of course, there were birds on the beach too...

I didn't know it at the time, but this Black-bellied Plover was the only one of the species I'd see for the whole trip, so my minor guilt at interrupting a romantic beach walk to take its picture certainly has not lasted. The soft evening lighting, cool breezes, and powdery sand of the Florida beaches are the most welcome of refuges for desiccated Arizonans.

Of course, the main objective of the Florida trip was to attend a wedding, but with that objective well-established and not under threat, there would be plenty of birding to fit in as well!

P.S. Apologies for the rather revealing shots. It's all for...SCIENCE.

Belly of the Beast

There stands the largest Plover of North America. At eleven and a half inches, these black-bellied behemoths strut about the beach with an appropriate air of haughtiness. Why appropriate? Because they're breathing higher air than all the other Plovers and Peeps around them, and they know it!



While photographing these specimen of titanicus ploveriforms, trying to maintain the appropriate levels of awe and reverence, I overheard a plaintive shorebird enviously talking to another about the stately Plover in the distance. They too, stood in awe and envy of these birds. It went something like this:

Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world
Like a colossus, and we pecking hens
Walk under his huge legs and Peep about
To find ourselves running from waves.
We at some times are masters of our fates:
The fault, dear Brutus (must be bird # 2's name), is not in our wingbars,
But in ourselves, for we are Sanderlings.

As one might expect of such superlative, high-class birds, the Plovers did not appreciate my company. After giving me some brief looks, they decided I had taken too much interest in them and soon departed. When they took their leave, one of the forlorn Sanderlings tried to follow the Black-bellied Plover and his platonic (non-breeding plumage) companion.

"Wait! Take me with you!!!"

Together they flew off into the sunset, or at least towards where the sun would set in several hours. So assuming they continued to fly for five more hours (which they probably did not), they flew off into the sunset. Hopefully they did not fly too close to the sun, like Icarus. Hubris is a big problem for big Plovers.

Anyway, my time with the Black-bellied Plovers was brief, but it was beautiful. They're very striking birds with a mojo quite unique from the Turnstones, Sandpipers, Gulls, and everything else that's bustling on the beach all around them. Calm, collected, aristocratic, they bring an element of high-class to the shoreline without a doubt.

Good luck to the Sanderling. Hopefully he can keep up with the Plovers and is not driven mad with an inferiority complex. As Desiderius Erasmus once said, perhaps while doing a little birding himself, "Fortune favors the audacious."

P.S. Bonus points to whoever knows the famous play and scene referenced above!

Original:
Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world
Like a Colossus, and we petty men
Walk under his huge legs and peep about
To find ourselves dishonorable graves.
Men at some time are masters of their fates:(145)
The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
But in ourselves, that we are underlings.