For the Birds

There are more birds than people on Assateague Island. Maybe always but especially on a blustery March afternoon. There were snowy egrets in the shallows and a great blue heron that flew up and away as I tried to snap a photo. Piping plovers ran in and out of the waves, in that adorable way they do. Beside them were scores of sanderlings, many hopping on one leg, and gulls, of course, which are always with us.

Most dramatic was the flock of snow geese that spiraled down from the heavens, a murmuration of waterfowl that landed on the spit of sand between Tom's Cove and the Atlantic Ocean. A gift of bird life all the way from Arctic lands.