“Shorebirds” by Juliane McAdam
For Norma, my birding guru
I arrive in the early morning at The Cloisters,
a beach just north of Morro Rock,
binoculars and notebook in hand, ready for
my first lesson in identifying shore birds.
“Let’s start here,” Norma says. “What would you call
that bird?” I answer that I’ve always called it a
sandpiper. “That’s like saying someone in the U.S. is
named Smith,” she replies. “It’s a long-billed curlew,
the largest and most regal of the sandpipers.”
And we’re off. Excitedly, I write down names in my
notebook: Whimbrel, Marbled Godwit, Willet, Sanderling.
I make notes on identification: probes with a sewing-machine
motion, wings flash white and black, bill upturned or straight,
scurries back and forth at water’s edge.
It’s only a start, but from now on everyone named Smith
will have at least a first and middle name.