Pectoral Sandpiper

This shot represents the culmination of a two-hour game of cat-and-mouse with this bird and his four Pectoral friends. On my first approach, a mix of crouching and crawling, they flew down the lake shore while I was still sixty feet away. Subsequent approaches built their trust, and I was eventually able to crawl within twenty feet. The birds were mostly bunched together, but this guy broke from the group long enough for isolated capture. It was helpful they stuck to a specific stretch of shoreline through several flushes; had they flown to the other side of the lake, I would have been out of luck. There must have been something good to eat in the super soft and nasty-ass mud! The soft pastel tones result from smoke-filtered sun, a byproduct of the California wildfires.

Lagoon Valley Park, Solano County, California, 9/20/20
Canon 600mm f/4 IS II + 1.4x III on EOS 1DX Mark II
1/2000 t f/5.6, ISO 1600