If I could find the wonderful "Birds of Los Angeles" book I bought last month at one of my favorite book stores, I'd be able to tell you the name of these stilt-legged birds who spend each winter here in Paradise Cove.

All day long they skitter across the wet sand, probing with their long, long beaks, eating and running and eating and running and, when something interferes, flying and scolding in their shrill, scraped voices because they've lost, for a moment, the rhythm of the lapping waves.