The Stilty-Legged Sand Stabber is endemic to the wild coasts of the borderlands of Southern California. It subsists primarily on surf-dwelling gummy worms and apple cores, but has on occasion been known to eat from the beached corpses of composers of nautical prose, who, once inspired by Melville and Verne, eventually succumbed to the siren song of the sea after sleeping on the deck in a monsoon without a rope and their last two Lucky Strikes in a soft pack in the back pocket of their skinny jeans.*
*Don't concern yourself too much with the writer. If not for the monsoon I created the cigarettes would certainly have killed them, and in my literary world the sea grants a much swifter and more merciful death than that of the slow deterioration caused by lung cancer.
The Stilty-Legged Sand Stabber mates three times a year: once to reproduce and twice for fun. Fun mating season begins at the onset of Spring Break and is generally performed just south of the US border after a ritual consumption of street tacos de lengua and $2 Coronas with those skinny lime wedges bobbing around inside like green grass skirt jetsam and god this is making me nostalgic.
The onset of serious mating season is boring and we won't talk about that because who in their right mind wants to hear about the building of nests with oversized tweezers or the anticipation of the cloacal kiss?
Nobody.
Nobody cares about incubating eggs for hours at a time, all those stilty legs sticking out every which way like Slavko Vraneš sitting on a kindergarten kiddie toilet full of cue balls. And those adorable fuzzy chicks getting their precious stabneedle billfaces lodged in the chinking of nests while fighting each other for the first helping of regurgitated apple compost and bloated poet? Booooorrrrrriiiiing.
The foraging habits of this species are far more interesting, namely those habits that include excavating the savory surf-dwelling gummy worm from its quicksludge sandhole.
Surf-dwelling gummy worms are a very important part of the Stilty-Legged Sand Stabber's diet. While the worms appear rubbery, they are, in fact, the consistency of thick snot. This makes the worms a nutrient-dense source of mucus and collagen needed to keep the stiltskin of the birds' legs from becoming rumpled by the harsh elements of coastal San Diego.
Excavating the surf-dwelling gummy worm from its quicksludge sandhole requires serious deep digging, the kind of deep digging you do while soul searching and questioning why you persist with those awful habits that make your life harder while clinging desperately to the illusion that they make your life better. The kind of deep-digging that uncovers all the lies you've told yourself to put off the personal growth everyone asked you to do before leaving you sweaty and squirming and all alone under a rock.
After extensive observation of the immense and intense deep digging done by the Stilty-Legged Sand Stabber on a daily basis just to get a goddamn meal, just to survive, scientists have concluded that this bird is as enlightened as the Buddha.
Because these birds are always here and always hungry just like your teenagers, they can easily be observed stuffing their faces and stuffing their faces into the sand any time between sunrise and sunset every day of the year except Yom Kippur.
So next time you're in San Diego, grab your camera, head to Imperial Beach, and take waaaaayyy way too many pictures of the Stilty-Legged Sand Stabber.
Happy sand stabbing!
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