The Sandpiper and the Serpent

I used to think of Whitewater Draw as a vast muddy plain with a puddle or two out in the middle. No more!

The water stretches forever out there right now, and there are a few appealing shorebird spots on the edges of the smaller ponds. Appealing, at least, to shorebirders, though the birds seemed to find these areas eminently resistible today. But still, we started off with fantastic close views of a juvenile Baird’s Sandpiper, and ended with even better views of a juvenile Least Sandpiper.

The most interesting sighting, though, was of a Spotted Sandpiper feeding nervously in a small puddle near the parking lot–a puddle shared by a common kingsnake. Though the spotty bobbed a bit more frantically the closer it got to the snake, it seemed to recognize that it was a morsel more tempting than realistic, and never obviously panicked even when the snake was just inches away.