The sandpiper, like the rest of its wader brethren, is a busy disposition, tiptoeing pensively along the shore, looking for something beyond food it seems… reading passing scribes on the water or pondering over the lay of the land… there’s a melancholy in its demeanour, maybe those long migrations add up after a few years or those complex permutations of parapatry…

We were waiting for the ferry to load at Tiracol river when this individual, unperturbed by the loud belching of the engine, jogged nonchalantly across the muddy shore… looking up at the human commotion from time to time, it kept mulling over the molluscs… the bobbing tail reminded me of a scaly thrush I’d seen doing a similar walk in completely different environs, the exact function is unknown, maybe a balancing act, trying to startle a potential prey or just dancing to its own tune…

‘Tis a busy lifespan, that of a sandpiper… breeding in colder climes of the far north that briefly bask in twenty-four hours of sunlight before the long winters close in, the chicks are born precocial, ready to skittle around and feed the moment they hatch… the females totally expended in the effort of laying those large eggs, it falls upon the male to protect and rear the young… then there’s all the competition for the best gene pools… ‘tis a seeker of solitude, often found meandering alone in a constant state of wistfulness, although they do move in groups as well, especially while migrating…

In an otherwise nondescript humid afternoon, dirty ropes, a tinge of sepia to the sky, rusty metal, a tepid estuary, the sandpiper brought about a pleasant animation… weaving through the garbage, sifting through porous rocks, punctuating the coastal ecosystem with its hustle…

Musing on a Common Sandpiper (Actitis hypoleucos), Tiracol, Goa