We went to the beach twice today, once just to look and once to walk and look.  There seemed to be more birds than ever, including a huge flock of sandpipers that were nestling into a long expanse of pebbles. Their shape and coloring were such that they almost seemed to be pebbles themselves.

The footprints are small — and delicate.  A single wave would probably erase them.  Their distribution is dense enough to imply a large group, possibly shuffling themselves around.  Jockeying for position?  Settling in?  These must be sandpiper prints; they are too small to belong to the gulls.  They seem embossed rather than embedded.  How?