BIRD OF THE WEEK NO. 18

Marbled Godwit

I VISITED OCEAN SHORES again. Before covid, I came to the Washington coast regularly for the shorebird migrations in late April and early May. Thousands of them stop over on their way north to feed from the vast mud banks of Gray’s Harbor. Most of them—the sanderlings, pipers, dunlins, plovers, and godwits—have also transitioned or are in the process of transitioning to their breeding plumage. Gray birds turn reddish brown. Others, like the Black-bellied Plovers, develop black bellies. On a good day, the light through the clouds, especially during the golden hours when the sun rises and sets, beautifully illuminates the birds’ new colors. But my day there, unfortunately, was not one of those days.

SUCCESSFUL BIRD photography requires several things to fall into place. First, of course, you must go where the birds are. Over time, you learn the times and places where particular birds are likely to be, predictably if not always reliably, and sometimes there are delightful surprises. On the northwest coast, both predictable and surprising sightings often occur right about now because the birds are in motion. From roughly April through June, we see more songbirds such as warblers and tanagers. Recently, I sat in my backyard and was cheered by a group of Yellow-rumped Orange-crowned Warblers dancing around our old apple tree. And many ducks and seabirds and shorebirds fly inland or north in the late spring to breed.

BEYOND LOCATION and time-of-year, the next most important factor in bird photography is the weather. For shorebirds, cloud cover provides less contrast against the mud and thus more protection from the eagles and hawks scanning the beach for dinner. The migrants take advantage of a clear day, or more precisely a clear night, to fly on. For the photographer, it’s the opposite. A clear day or, even better, a sunny day with some clouds to soften and filter and focus the light, is ideal. My friend Brian and I traveled to the coast yesterday in promising weather, generally sunny and warm. But almost as soon as we arrived, the coast was cold and socked in with featureless gray clouds. Though there were several small birds scattered across the wide sandy beach—mostly sandpipers, sanderlings, and Semi-palmated Plovers—the light was dull, even at sunset. The next morning was worse—just the solid gray skies of the northwest, so familiar in the winter, which my wife calls The Pewter. But on the spring day in 2019 when I took this photograph of a flock of Marbled Godwits, I waded out on the sand so that my back was to the setting sun, whose orange-gold light reflected from the wet sand through the birds’ under-feathers to create the perfect convergence of conditions.

Nikon D500, 500mm, 1/800 sec, f5.6, ISO 1600