By Sally Siko

While checking out the bird activity at the Ft.Fisher basin I spotted a pair of Marbled Godwits flying in to join a flock of smaller birds sleeping on the rocks.
While I wish that the lighting was better for photography reasons (I don’t like the backlit look) it was super cool to get some close up photos of these elegant creatures in flight.

Marbled Godwits are an autumn and wintertime resident of North Carolina and found mainly looking for a meal on the mudflats in the shallow water tidal marshes and impoundments of our coastal counties.
Their diets mainly consist of marine worms and small crustaceans but they’ll also eat insects and other invertebrates when the opportunity arises.

When feeding, they’ll move slowly probing for food underneath the mud with their sensitive bill. If a Godwit finds prey deep down they’ll insert their entire bill into the mud, sometimes submerging their entire head if it means coming up with a snack.
Yes, muddy headed Godwits are a thing lol!

As seen in these photos, they can also be spotted on rock jetty’s and other saltwater inlet shorelines too.
Standing at around 18 inches tall, these attractive cinnamon colored birds are relatively easy to ID in a mixed flock of smaller shorebirds such as sandpipers, Willets, Dowichers and plovers.
Aren’t they beautiful?

Photos by @sally_siko of @bestlife_birding on the full frame beast of an SLR, the mighty @canonusa
#5Ds