One afternoon, in February of 2007, we were walking around Baywood Park
killing time before dinner. It was low tide and the local fauna was very excited about the mud.

Just off from the beach, near a couple of high-and-dry boats, there were some weird, pudgy black birds (“black brants,” an informative sign told us) slopping around and making the most absurd squishing noises. I had to upload a video:

You can’t quite hear the squishing (and I didn’t get any footage of the birds when they were slogging chest deep), but I think the video gives a pretty good idea of the absurdity of these creatures.