When Push Comes to Shove

Purple Sandpipers (Calidris maritima)

This past weekend I took my annual trip to mecca - Barnegat Beach State Park, NJ, where I navigated slippery jetty rocks to try and get a glimpse into the behavior of our far northern winter migrant waterfowl and shorebirds. This year I focused my attention on groups of purple sandpipers that drop in for a visit - especially mussel encrusted jetties, where they eek out the winter on a bounty of marine crustaceans, worms, and mollusks. What I learned during my observations was that they like to cling on rocks on the wave-energy side (look at those serrated feet and clasping claws) - sometimes being completely submerged by a crashing wave with seemingly little effect on the task at hand.

Crazy, crazy, crazy how they are constantly being battered and pounded by tidal forces while somehow working these rocks for whatever it it they're after. I couldn't tell for sure what the forage du jour' was, but they spent a inordinate amount of time on the the turbulent side of those rocks. I only got images when they moved from rock pile to rock pile where they presented on my side of the jetty. As the image below exhibits, they were territorial over the rocks they were working, pushing and shoving intruders away if they challenged the source. Through all the flurry they all somehow stuck together in lose flocks of 2 to 6 individuals - all working the nooks and crannies in some type of tacit unison - gleaning - moving- gleaning - moving. I love it when nature allows me a little peek into her innerworkings!