Pectoral Sandpiper

Pectoral sandpiper. ©Teresa Shumaker.

Sometimes when you are looking at the horizon, you almost miss what is underfoot. Fortunately for me, and this little sandpiper, he moved quickly and I didn't step on him. But it was a close call.
In the mungey kelp that washed onshore he was almost invisible, until he flew up in protest of my clambering feet.
This little guy winters in South America and spends its summers on the Artic Coast from Alaska to the Hudson Bay. He, or she, stopped on the Mendocino Coast for about a week to refuel as he heads south.
They are known as Pectoral Sandpipers because males have a sack in their chest that they inflate during breeding season. It puffs out the chest and fluffs up the pectoral feathers.