This is Bird Note.

On the North Atlantic coast, a winter storm sends waves crashing over a rocky jetty.

As the waves retreat, exposing the rocks once more, a slate-grey sandpiper clambers up. Using its long bill, it picks

among the barnacles and muscles that encrust the jetties' massive boulders. At the same moment,

a parallel scene unfolds on the North Pacific coast. A slate-colored sandpiper emerges from the salt spray to forage over a

wind-swept jetty. These strange twins, two species of sandpipers, embrace a seemingly perilous life

amid storm-tossed boulders instead of probing sheltered mudflats, like so many of their kin.

The two lookalikes are the purple sandpiper of the Atlantic,

and the rock sandpiper of the Pacific.

They wouldn't normally be singing in winter on the jetties, but their songs are just too good to pass up.

Short-legged and portly as sandpipers go. The two often feed alongside slightly larger turnstones.

Specialized shorebirds that share their daredevil habits.

For Bird Note, I'm Michael Stein.