I was lying flat on the sand with my camera focused intently on this sanderling scurrying on the wet sand. It followed the waves as they retreated and then quickly ran away as the next wave advanced, and probed madly at the sand in the brief seconds in between. Occasionally it would extract a mole crab (often called "sand fiddlers") or a small coquina clam. A Ruddy Turnstone was sifting through the wrack a short distance away, flipping over the stems of dead marsh grass as it searched for any morsel. A Willet joined the Sanderling in the intertidal zone and it too found a mole crab or two.
I had not noticed a couple approaching me and only when their shadow came over me did I realize that I was being watched. They were out for a morning stroll on the beach and I guess I look pretty silly to them..or in distress...who knows? They asked what I was photographing. I replied and pointed to the shorebirds, to which they seemed disinterested and they went on their way.