Blackbirds on the Beach

Today is the last day of my week-long family vacation at the Outer Banks of North Carolina. I brought a couple of books that I thought would be fitting for my environment, among them Song for the Blue Ocean by Carl Safina and The Wind Birds by Peter Matthiessen. I was particularly excited for the latter, thinking that I would be reading Matthiessen’s book on the shorebirds of North America while watching sandpipers peck at the sand and plovers fly overhead. No such luck. Aside from a few gulls (and really, there were only 3 or 4 at any given time…a beach trip surprisingly lacking in something that is so commonly seen!), all I saw were some Boat-tailed Grackles.



What were these blackbirds doing here, filling the niche where I thought I would find sandpipers? They walked along the beach, poking their beaks in the sand, as unafraid of the incoming waves as any ocean bird. In fact, this bird is found exclusively on the Gulf and Atlantic coasts, and they are so adapted to a water environment that babies that fall into the water can actually swim, using their wings like flippers. Usually found in freshwater or salt marshes near the coast, I suppose it is not surprising that the birds would be found on the beach as well. Omnivorous birds who will eat garbage and are found in cities, it is also not surprising that they would be found in an area that is becoming increasingly more developed, as beach front properties support larger and larger houses and vacationers return year after year, never neglecting this beautiful place.



I’ve watched the grackles for days now. Other than the occasional dolphin or sea gull, and a few lines of pelicans coasting above the water, they’re the only wildlife I’ve seen on the beach this week. Several keep flying out from beneath the Kitty Hawk pier, a hundred yards south of our house, where they must have built their nests. Others walk back and forth along the beach, spreading out their large tails as they take flight to avoid the large waves that roll into shore. I can’t recall ever seeing blackbirds like these so close to the ocean, and a part of me misses the mottled, beachy plumage of the shorebirds that Matthiessen writes about, but the presence of the Boat-tailed Grackle has given me the chance to learn about a new species. Their deep black plumage compliments the skate egg cases that lie strewn across the beach, and their call is one of spring, of sunshine and good weather. Like the ocean itself, the beach is full of surprises.