The wildfires across the bay mainly went unnoticed by the birds, save for the ominous pillars of smoke rising toward the sun, threatening something like a thunderstorm, only worse.
Until a few days later, when what began as a slight darkening of the surf soon became huge piles of ash and charred debris smothering the intertidal zone where they feed.
Mountains of black made it hard to reach the surf and even harder to flee back to safety once they made it there. Worms were buried under the thick black carpet.
But they also found new things to eat, such as bugs crawling through the ash, and so they shrugged their wings, carried on, and marveled at the dramatic and unexpected change.
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Here’s a video look at the forming ashy ITZ in Barnegat Light in the wake of the wildfires
Say something kind