I love the story that the prints tell. First photo; the birds meet on the beach having landed a few metres apart one coming into the pic from 12 o'clock and one from 9 o'clock, and greet each other making bodily contact which pushes their feet more firmly into the sand. 2nd pic; one leads off before another close encounter occurs. Third photo, they set off for the nesting site, one following directly (literally) in footsteps of the other after which (out of these photos tho) they walk two abreast and even take different paths around a small microwave-sized rock that lies in their pathway. See first photo in this (same) observation for the exiting footprints. https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/28483970