Do Avocets Dream of Perfect Mud?

For three after work afternoons in a row, I had missed these avocets.

The first afternoon, I just could not stop, an appointment demanded my presence elsewhere.

The second day, I stopped, and they immediately flew off.

The third day, they were a little too far from the roadway.

On the fourth day, as I got into the JEEP to leave work, I prepared for OPERATION AVOCET.

• Step one: Unzip the passenger side window and fold it down.
• Open camera bag, check all camera settings.
• Pray,hope, wish that the birds will be there.

And they were.

Individually and in small troops, they slogged across the tidal mudflat, sweeping their upturned bills sideways through each and every ebb tide puddle.

Tiny mud snails, grass shrimps, and fish fry left behind by the retreating Gulf of Florida were efficiently and ruthlessly removed from their protective puddles by the left - right sweeping of the avocet's bill.

Our winter tides are tres, tres LOW and the migrating shorebirds, like these avocets, are reaping the mud's rich bounty.

I wonder if the avocets love the marshy mud for all it provides.
I know I do.
I love the smell of the estuary mud.
I love the texture ... like silt pudding.
I love sinking in it, sometimes up to my chest ... and feeling things, living things creeping through it, brushing my skin, reminding me that this mud is ALIVE.

The avocets know that last fact, that the mud is alive.
It's what draws them to slog across it, sweeping, ever sweeping.

I don't know if the bird brain allows an appreciation of the big picture though.
Does the avocet ever pause in awe at the wonder, the sheer magic, that transforms sunlight into diatoms in the mud, and then to snails, shrimps, and other mudflat plankton eaters, before finally, changing one more time into feathers, muscle, and long sweeping, upturned Avocet bills?

I don't speak Avocet, so I don't have an answer.

They were chattering about something while they worked though ...