Purple Sandpiper

[Shortsighted]

There were two Purple sandpipers among the other shorebirds:







Purple sandpiper into the sun


Dunlin head pop-up

[Shortsighted]

A couple more shots of the Purple sandpiper.  It is difficult to manage the contrast between light areas and shadows with a cropped sensor-equipped camera, especially when the light is 90-degrees to the subject.  I was already sitting on wet slimy stones within half puddles on a cloth shopping bag because I forgot to bring my foam mat.  Any more ambitious attempt to get the sun behind me would entail my entering the lake, which is not my idea of fun at 10-degrees and in a breeze.




 

[Charline]

Great shots!


Where can I find purple?

[Shortsighted]

Ah well, everyone gets confused by that.  If you look carefully, the purple is in the water when the clash of reflected sky and the green algae results in a maelstrom of purple frothy water that these sandpipers are attracted to.  If you mean, where can you find purple sandpipers that may occasionally look a little purple depending upon how much purple water gets splashed on them, then I would have to say Beaton Point, on the beach, next to the southern end of McLaughlin Bay in Oshawa.  I can sell you a ticket in order to recoup my loss when some clown charged me to take a photo.  I asked him where his ticket booth was and he said it has been sent out for repainting, but he wore an official-looking vest.

[Charline]

Those dots in the water are caused by chromatic aberration.


I still don't know why the bird is called purple sandpiper.

[Shortsighted]

Would you like to be associated with anything as unsavory-sounding as chromatic aberration?  Surely not!  All aberrations aside, where they usually reside, the Purple moniker has its origin from the purplish iridescent hue that sometimes appears on the bird's breast, especially after a good thrashing by bully-birds, which firmly reside on the fringes of my imagination like shells of chromatic aberration on a crisp morning.  I've never seen this purple mantle on the two occasions that I've seen these sandpipers but the feature may only be present later in the season, when ice and snow are present, when the bird is entrenched within its non-breeding cycle and probably cold and miserable, feeling and looking a little blue but appearing purple due to that chromatic aberration and all that purple water.  You think me nuts, I wager.  Thou hast exceptional perspicacity m'lady.  Maybe the purple is really there, but subtle and we have gotten so used to outrageous LED pixels in vibrant colour that we have lost our ability to discern the nuances found in nature.