Piping Plover chicks: Kennebunk, Maine, USA, June 2025 — It was amazing to spend an hour with these two, maybe two day old, Piping Plover chicks and their parents on the beach yesterday. The chicks are totally fearless…eager to explore, finding all kinds of tasty bugs, running like wind-up toys across the sand, going nowhere in particular. The parents are frantic, trying to herd them and protect them from all the considerable dangers in this world. Sound familiar? So much fun, and such a privilege to watch. And a real challenge to photograph, if you into that as well. If you take a close look at any of these photos, you will see why Piping Plover chicks give any camera’s auto focus fits. The things are blurry by nature, intentionally blurry. No sharp edges but their legs, no contrast to the plumage, which is itself too fluffy and undefined to focus on, and their eyes are always hooded, half open, and deep set. No target at all. Still, with persistence, and throwing away way all the many many near-misses, it is possible to come home with a few keepers. 🙂 Sony a6700. Tamron 50-400 at 600mm equivalent. Program mode with my birds and wildlife modifications. (I kept switching back and forth between focus areas but I am not sure it made any difference.) Processed in Photomator.