A pair of Spotted Sandpipers woke me this morning.  Not from sleep – such tiny, quiet things aren’t up to that – but from a conscious, insentient slumber.  After 24 years living by Galveston Bay, I sometimes get distracted by the tedious and drab routine of chores and schedules, such that I neglect the quiet and unassuming beauty that surrounds me every day.  Shame on me for that.

Stepping outside this morning with a cup of coffee, I saw the two birds bobbing among the rip-rap, hunting for breakfast.  They are small – just over 7 inches – and subdued in color, making them easy to overlook, especially against the grand palette of the bay and the multitude of larger, showier birds. 

Actitus Macularius

But one behavior always catches my eye: they bob their tails up and down.  Nobody knows why.  Spotted chicks start bobbing soon after hatching and carry on for the rest of their life.  Ornithologists call this “teetering.”  Indeed, when they really get into the swing of it their whole body teeters from bow to stern, like a tiny feathered see-saw.

Nicknames are sure to follow such odd behavior.  A few of them: teeter-snipe; tip-tail; teeter-peep.  My favorite is “teeter-bob.”  I didn’t make any of those up.

So where was I?  Oh yes: morning; coffee; a mind already distracted by the tasks lined up for the day.  And a pair of teeter-bobs….

As soon as I saw them, the engine of my day, already accelerating, sputtered and went off the rails.  Forgetting the chores that were bedeviling me even before I had woken, I retrieved a camera and began taking photos of my teeter-bob neighbors (photo/video montage below).  Which lead me to notice the clear water, wide beach and low tide that follow the first fall north winds.  Which in turn alerted me to the soft, polished marble surface of the bay on a rare windless morning.  And then an osprey whistled in the sky, a pandemonium of parakeets dramatically announced their arrival at my bird feeders, and the dawn haze vanished to reveal ships moving in the channel and small sailboats searching for a breeze.

For the rest of the day my gaze and my attention turned bay-ward.  As it does every day here, light, shade and colors modulated minute by minute; waterfowl zigzagged across the horizon or floated by; sailboats raised sails, their colors catching fire in the sunlight as they tacked, then darkening as they jibed.

Tonight, thinking back over the day, I fret over the tasks left undone on a day when they really needed doing.  But I can’t bring myself to regret it.  Today I let myself once again be enchanted by the wonders that first brought me here and which have kept me here for more than a third of my life. 

Today I was happy.  I was – as much as I can be these days – carefree.  And I owe that to a lowly pair of teeter-bobs.  Thank you, dear little friends.