Sanderling captured by Z 9 / Z600f4TC w/Z2x
A couple of lifetimes ago, my mentor told me I needed to see the mass shorebird migration in fall at Folly Beach. I didn’t have the means back then to make that trip, so I’m been doing it now. Ted’s photo showed a beach covered with little peeps, a birders’ paradise! This pass week I struggled to find just one bird each session to photograph. I was lucky, I did find one and, even more luckily, found a cooperative one like this Sanderling last evening. There, on the end of Sullivan’s Island, Fort Sumter off in the distance, this lone Sanderling spent time on a small stretch of beach foraging. Witness to its passing, there was NO WAY I was going to take a photo that said, “it was here,” but rather, it has to celebrate it was here! How to visually say that is the question? Lying on the sand, the rolling surf was placed in the background, waiting for the splash to create some sparkle. The Sanderling needed a portrait that would make folks stop, if just for a moment, and take note that it’s a survivor and carrying on the very long tradition of migration. The entire scenario is very depressing, the loss of so many of its cousins over the decades, had to pull out all the tricks so in one click, leave it with a positive spin.