The Boy and the Sandpiper

On a bright sunny morning, Leo puts on his red bucket hat and heads to the beach, where the sand feels warm and the waves repeat their steady whoosh. What draws him most are the sandpipers, tiny birds with long thin legs and slender beaks that dash across the wet sand like little wind-up toys. As he watches them feed, Leo notices that some of the birds are not running at all but sitting very still.

His mother explains that those sandpipers are sitting on nests built in shallow dips right on the beach, and that their mottled brown and white eggs and chicks blend almost invisibly into the sand. Leo's concern grows when a golden dog named Biscuit bounds across the beach without noticing a bird on its nest, and he waves and calls the dog away just in time. Realizing that people and dogs can step on hidden nests by accident, Leo decides to act on an idea of his own. This gentle tale by Çınar BİBER can be read on Masalcı Baba.