When What's Around You Gets A Lot Closer

Someone once told me “you only see what’s around you, and you think that’s it.” I think about that a lot. But the more I do, the more I realize how important it is to see what’s around you. It is all you ever will, and it is all you will ever be able to control. What’s around me is not all there is, but when you take the time to enjoy what’s around you, you are able to go places you never could before. And remember those moments for the rest of your life.

With the tide rising and the sun setting on a record-breaking day, I stood on what became known as “the island” to the people I shared shorebird camp with. I was helping conduct a Red Knot (REKN) survey and one of the tasks was to resight individually flagged birds. The record-breaking part of that day was setting a project best of seven individual flags in one day. And “the island” provided numbers five and six on the day.

The incoming tide washed up a slough and cut the mudflats from the mainland to form “the island.” As I stood at its center, the tideline-feeding shorebirds engulfed me. And mother nature pushed them closer and closer. Inch by inch with the rising sea water. The flock was mostly our target Red Knot species, and each bird flushed from this evening hotspot at their own level of uncomfortableness. When all the photos were taken and all the flags resighted, I waded back to the mainland mudflats to watch “the island” disappear within minutes, leaving nothing but several Black-bellied Plovers standing in water. With no time to rest, I had to catch up to my flag-finding partner, who had eyes on the seventh and last flag of the day.

But right there, in that moment, all I saw was Red Knots, and that was all that mattered. No distractions, just me and those remarkable red birds.

Red Knot 3MY on the island