St. Simons Island is one of the coolest places to spend the low tide hours... the sea retreats almost a half mile and leaves in its place endless tidepools and sandbars for exploring...
There are joys in every moment. Some, like the Black Skimmers that fly past, hold a little tease and leave a wake of longing...
When I'm finished looking for seashells, there's always birds to entertain me...
like these Boat-tailed Grackles playing King of the (sand)Castle
: )
(I forget how noisy they are when I'm away from the coast for too long!)
Royal Terns are grown, but still begging from their parents.
(endlessly entertaining!)
A walk among the birds at low tide teaches me to measure happiness by nothing I can hold... nothing I can catch.
; )
I sneak close on my belly, camera in hand, for a better look at the spot of mustard on a Sandwich Tern's bill...
and squat low over the water with a Willet.
The beach is stretched out as far as it can go as I pause to consider a young Piping Plover feeding at the far end of a tidepool...
Can my imagination make this bird a familiar?
(
Could be... though its banded companion was hatched in the Great Lakes area this past summer.)
I keep walking and exploring the quiet changes the outgoing tide has left; entire oceans are moved one inch at a time...