My recent trip to Bottle Beach had to be the highlight of my year so far. As always, I was mesmerized by the synchronized anarchy of waves of shorebirds flashing up and down the shoreline,
suddenly dropping into their place on the beach,
Short-Billed Dowitchers wading at water’s edge,
Dunlins probing the sand
ahead of the incoming tide,
Western Sandpipers skittering here, there,
everywhere, surrounding.
Invisible, surrounded by hundreds of small birds I feel strangely alive, connected.