My Watermark is Hampton Beach, New Hampshire, on the Atlantic Ocean.

My family and I go down to the US every summer either to Hampton beach or Ogunquit beach and reserve a cottage there for a couple of days. The event of my water story took place at the Hampton beach in 2009 if I recall correctly. When we arrived at the beach, the weather was just beautiful. It was sunny and the skies were blue without a single cloud and the water was a nice dark turquoise colour. It’s a real sight!

We were very excited to get in the water and enjoy the sun so we went to the cottage to just drop our things, change and head out. My mom and my sister took a while to get ready so I decided to start walking around our dog in the meantime so that he can get familiar with the area. He comes with us every year to these trips but once he gets excited, he runs around everywhere and he wouldn’t be able to remember where he came from.

Anyways, we were strolling along when my dog started barking at a bird. Normally, I would quite down my dog and ignore the bird because it’s most likely to be a seagull. But that time, it was different. It was a very beautiful small bird, so I couldn’t possibly ignore it. I took some pictures and headed back to the cottage to find more about this bird. I searched online and saw that it was an endangered species. So I decided to help protect these species - there was not much I could have done at the time but I did some more research to find that covering holes in the sand and leashing our dog helps.

Sometimes, chicks are trapped in the sand holes so they aren’t able to get out. That day, I spent my time covering any holes I can find and reminding people with dogs to leash them and explaining to them why they must do so if they didn’t know yet. From that day on, whenever we go to Hampton beach, I do this as a routine while walking my dog while my family gets prepared. I don’t always see them but sometimes I’m lucky enough to see more than one.