July 18. The sandpipers that we thought were so cute a few weeks ago, running at tremendous speed through the far reaches of the waves with legs invisible with speed, have gotten bigger. And slower. Their legs no longer disappear in the frame rate. Physically, this seems plausible: moving these larger legs at similar speeds would require much more energy. I try to imagine sandpipers big as skyscrapers pecking down into the streets of Manhattan. And I try to find out from Wikipedia why all sandpipers were so much smaller a few weeks ago. But Wikipedia doesn’t help. I google “sandpiper jacksonville” instead, but that only leads to real estate. It seems to be a popular, if not the most popular, real estate name around here.