Tuitui

If you could see this photo in higher resolution, you might notice something strange about it. The bird is a Tuitui, in Inuktitut. A Baird's Sandpiper, one of our more common summer breeding birds, and by far the most common shorebird around here. 

They are long distant migrants, some travelling as far as the southern tip of South America in our winter, and they breed up here in the High Arctic. I start expecting to see them in the beginning of June, almost guaranteed to see them by June's second week. There is a flurry of breeding displays and they head into the dry tundra to nest.

But back to the photo. If you could see this photo in more detail you'd notice that a leg seems oddly misplaced, too far forward to be logical. Look even closer and you'd see something even more odd. Right there, where that stem of grass curves across its belly, the bird seems to have a second beak, albeit a small one.

It is not some strangely deformed bird, but two birds.  For the odd leg and extra beak belong to the individual pictured below.

The Baird's have begun to hatch, and make their way down to water. These appear to be very recently hatched birds (there were three). A visit to a Baird's nest in another location two days ago revealed that there were still three eggs, and these chicks were very small.  And very fast. Almost impossible to keep in focus, especially given that I wanted to grab a few shots and clear out quickly after I stumbled on them  while looking for a Long-tailed Duck nest.

The chicks are nidifugous or precocial, meaning that they are active almost as soon as they hatch, able to run and feed almost immediately.  They are also amazingly cryptic when they are still and trying to hide from danger.  That chick above may seem like a stand out, but if you came across it hiding, you'd almost never see it.

This one below is just settling down to try and hide, and stands out in the flash, but you get the idea.

Tuitui are amongst my favourite birds here. They are abundant, and easy to find if you know where to look. They are fiercely loyal parents. The two adults were so close to me trying to distract me from the chicks that not only was I unable to focus on them, I could have reached out and touched them.

It was a cool evening, after a wet day and as much as I wanted to spend more time trying to get great photos I had already disturbed them far too much.  I hadn't even backed off a couple of feet when one of the adults settled down and the hidden chick in the first photo dove under that fluffed up belly.