Surprising Grace

(Long-billed Curlew)

I’ve marveled for years at the astounding beak of the Long-billed Curlew. Casually, I’ve wondered about how they pick a tiny edible up with the tip of their preposterously long bill and somehow get it into their actual mouth and gullet. It turns out that the physics of capillary action is part of the answer.

It was not until I read portions of Priyanka Kumar’s Conversations with Birds, however, that I reconsidered the bird. Among her first days of serious birding, Priyanka encountered teams of glowing Curlews flying overhead and stood “transfixed” as waves of them began their migration to summer breeding grounds. Soon after her mentor shared that the once abundant bird is often casually shot as hunters mistake them for ground squirrels in tall grasses. Apparently, the slaughter is just good fun and target practice.

And so, I looked again and then again along the beaches of California and at hundreds of photos of the birds in their prairie breeding grounds. For the first time, I recognized their graceful movements and attended to the rich colors of their summer feathers.

What a great reminder to slow down and come to really know a bird. They are so much more that a check on the day’s list.