On the California coast: What's that thing?

Kirk Ericson | Nov 10, 20220

OCEANSIDE, Calif. — It is good to know there are more of us than there are of them, but enough with this election.

Other matters are worth considering in this muddled-up world, including godwits, surfers and Californians, to name just three.

Mrs. Ericson and I are on holiday in Southern California, just two near-pensioners looking for warmth. We’ve spent much of our time walking beaches, including the shore along Oceanside in north San Diego County. We like how crashing waves muffle all other sounds. We like the ocean’s chaos and calm. Occasionally, we’ll lean against each other and stare at the Pacific’s unfathomable horizon.

We walked the beach in Oceanside on Monday morning. It was clear and warm, and a couple dozen surfers crowded the short waves breaking 50 yards offshore between two jetties, near the mouth of the San Luis Rey River. A helicopter flew a few hundred yards offshore, back and forth, circling, sometimes flying straight and parallel to the shore, with no intent discernable to us. One surfer suggested the copter might be looking for a shark that bit a swimmer in the leg last week near Del Mar.

On the beach, several birds working the surf line grabbed our attention. The birds had nearly 1-foot-long legs with knobby little knees, and equally long beaks with a slight upward curve at the end. They would thrust their beaks into the sand after the surf retreated and then pound the sand like a jackhammer, sometimes burying their head in the beach. Their beaks often emerged with crawly things hanging from the tips.

They’re odd birds. They’re similar to our state’s sandpipers, those comical creatures that scurry on their spindly legs while their bodies remain still as a still life. These birds in California are four times as large as our sandpipers, their bodies the size of crows. We had no idea what they were called.

I started asking surfers and beach walkers. “You know the name of that bird?” It’s an old-fashioned way to gather information. You ask several people – in this case, mostly surfers – and see whether you get pointed toward an answer. I had assumed surfers had also asked themselves, “What’s that bird?”

The first passerby was a middle-aged fellow out for a stroll alone. He didn’t know the birds’ name. “You should look it up on Google” he told me. He wasn’t the last to suggest I should just check Google. His tone was, “Why are you asking me when you could just ask your phone?”

I asked an older woman. “I don’t know,” she said. “Maybe a willet?” And on and on it went, until I’d asked about 10 people. Several guessed “sandpiper,” one guy said a snowy plover, one said, “It’s a shorebird,” which is way of saying the obvious, like seeing a flying eagle and calling it a “sky bird.”

One older guy quickly and confidently said “sandpiper” as he walked past. People who snap off responses like that often don’t know squat. The worlds of business, politics, religion and cable TV often reward such people.

One young man who said he was from Italy said, “I don’t know what those birds are called. I’m from Italy.”

Of the 10 people I asked on that beach, none knew the name of this bird, a bird that seems as distinctive as a pelican.

“Surfers,” Mrs. Ericson offered as explanation.

It’s tempting to define Californians by this nugget of an experience, or to judge them from the store sign in Venice Beach that offered “Karma Cleansing” or the woman I overheard at a coffee shop telling a friend she was focusing on “Manifesting. I manifested wings recently.”

These experiences are a limited sample.

I went to the Buena Vista Audubon Society in Oceanside the next day and was told the birds we saw are called marbled godwits. Their name comes from the sound they make.

I should take this information to the beach before we leave.