oilslick redbill

Today I saw a bird I have never seen before. It scuttled across the sandstone as the tide came in, easy to see in the fading light because of its bright red bill, long and thin. There were four of them, entirely black save for their warning flag beaks. I was with Bob and Erica and Jonathon at the edge of a sea cliff. None of them had seen it either. The bird was even more remarkable then, in the company of those more drawn to the sea than I, with more years of seeing the shore. We laughed together trying to come up with a name for it, promising to remind each other to look it up later. Two brown pelicans flew below us, close over the breaking waves. The Redbills took off with little screams. None of us tried to imitate their warning call (if that's what it was), but took notice, and as at all things spoken aloud at that dusk hour, we laughed heartily at the thought of venturing to scream like the redbill at the office next week. And then I thought to myself, this feels like home. And I marvelled at how seldom I feel truly at home. We all get along swimmingly, and laugh and talk all the time, but I rarely feel such easy comraderie with my workmates - it was a glimpse of what it might feel like if we were just an unlikely group of friends. I think it was because we were outdoors, wiped out, and had no work to do for a whole several minutes. And that meant I could take notice of each of us as people. I could watch our interactions, all the while smelling the salt, feeling the wind nip my cheeks, and watching the incredible flight of hundreds of ordinary, feathered and hollow-boned beings right in front of me.
As all moments do, this one passed soon after it began.
We moved indoors, to finish our two-day convergence of energy focused on the thing all 21 of us have in common: a calling to bring about a food production system that is ecologically, economically, and socially viable for each other, and for all those other living things we marvel at when we take a moment to notice them.
It turns out that our oilslick redbill is none other than a black oystercatcher, Haematopus bachmani. I don't think they were catching oysters on that rock, though. How exactly would a bird need to catch an oyster? (Here I am imagining a group of oysters shooting bubbles out of their shells to launch themselves off the rocks and into the water, desparately trying to get away from the red hammers of death.) Black Oystercracker is probably a more apt name. Speaking of oyster crackers, how did they get their name? Do they compliment the slippery, slurpy throat dive of the lemon-garlic oyster as an after-crunch?
Names are funny. I like naming things, and thinking of names, especially for creatures (including people). I like knowing what names mean. Names are important - they solidify the connection you have with the named thing, what it means to you, what it means to the world. Names are also frustrating because they pinpoint a certain meaning or range of meanings and associations and limit other possibilities. What if we all had more than one name, for different people or different situations? That's a strange thought - what would I name myself at Thanksgiving with my family? What would my name be at work? What would my name be to the people I went to high school with that I don't know anymore? What would my name be in the bedroom? When I am travelling to a new place? I am attached to my name. I don't want to let it go, even temporarily. It's familiar to me. It defines me, in a way. The thought of not being juli is very strange indeed...