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Daily Bucket: Friday Sequence - Lunching on the Tidal Flats [1]

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Date: 2022-12-23

Grabbing lunch at low tide at Bolsa Chica Ecological Reserve

I spent Thanksgiving week visiting my Mom and sharing the holiday with a number of extended family. I also took time to visit both Bolsa Chica and Upper Newport Bay Ecological Reserves.

Low tide is the perfect time to go because the birds literally flock to the tidal flats to feed. I was able to observe a Willet and a Marbled Godwit lunching on the flats.

The Daily Bucket is a nature refuge. We amicably discuss animals, weather, climate, soil, plants, waters and note life’s patterns.

We invite you to note what you are seeing around you in your own part of the world, and to share your observations in the comments below.

Each note is a record that we can refer to in the future as we try to understand the phenological patterns that are quietly unwinding around us. To have the Daily Bucket in your Activity Stream, visit Backyard Science’s profile page and click on Follow.

I spotted the Willet wearing his winter grey coat on the edge of a pond at Bolsa Chica Ecological Reserve. I luckily focused in just as he dipped his long black beak into the shallow waters (See title shot). Let’s follow his battle with this mussel:

Success — a Black Mussel

Grab the open foot

OOPS — dropped it

Where did my lunch go?

Ahh here it is

Come back here

Got you again

How do I open this

Let me dunk it and see if it opens

Swish it around a little

Still dunking and prying it open

Yum got a piece out

Digging another piece out of the shell

Keep digging

Prying it wide open

Let me eat some more

Getting into it

A tasty morsel

Yum Just swallowed a tasty bit

Going back for more

Pulling out the last bit of food

The Upper Newport Bay held several hundred widgeons, dozens of coots, and a lot of various shorebirds.

Widgeons, Coots, Godwits, Plovers and a Snowy Egret enjoy the mudflats at low tide.

Marbled Godwits work in an entirely different way. They eat small creatures living in the mud. They love probing in the dirt for yummy stuff. This Godwit checked out a muddy spot in the Upper Newport Bay.

just poking around

Let’s check here

Now over here

Back here again

Turn around and check here

Now on this side

Try a spot with a little water

Nothing let’s move on

One unhappy Godwit strolls away.

What’s up in your neck of the woods?

Sacramento weather clear, dry and warming up. Highs for Christmas expected to be in the 60s. I will be in LA when this published and the weather there is expected to be in the mid-70s. But it looks like the high pressure maybe moving away so we may get some rain before the new year.

What’s up in your neck of the woods?

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