It is a fact not widely appreciated, but Somerville has a bit of seacoast. From the Amelia Earhart Dam to the T maintenance yard, a hundred-odd yards, the water is more sea than river. How do we know? Because the water tastes of salt, and the creatures in it are brinier than they are upstream. Here, for example, is a Somerville hermit crab (sporting a Somerville barnacle), captured just under the railway bridge:
And so, as a coastal town, however nominally, we have a right to a certain number of shorebirds, such as the least sandpiper shown above. But as it happens, the shorebirds are much more attracted to the mats of water chestnuts in the fresh water upstream -- a feature the authorities abhor to such an extent that they have employed mechanized harvesters to uproot it.
Recent weeks have seen significant numbers of waders there, not just the least sandpipers, but spotted sandpipers...
and lesser yellowlegs:
