Littorally Speaking

The Shorebirds Of Hermanus

- Duncan Butchart

A stiff south-easter is slicing the crests off breaking waves as they roll and rumble towards the shore. Foamy mounds of spume cover heaps of beached kelp and brine is in the air. With the hood of my windbreaker flapping wildly, I approach a little cove, disturbing a group of feeding Whimbrels that rise as one into the wind. The rippling calls of these sickle-billed shorebirds are music to my ears, but they are soon drowned out by the angry sea. The Whimbrels get into line and beat their way powerfully above the raging surf.

The edge of the sea is a strange and wondrous place, a zone of turbulence and unrest but also of extraordinary biological productivity. Many bird species have evolved to make a living along the seashore, feeding on the abundance of crustaceans, molluscs, echinoderms, fishes and occasionally one another. Sandpipers and their ilk are commonly regarded as ‘the shorebirds’, but a host of other birds are dependent in one way or another on this narrow littoral zone between land and sea.