I had a memorable morning at the beach. There were a number of birds on my target list, and soon after I arrived I tallied three lifers: Snowy Plover, Semipalmated Plover, and Sanderling. I saw and photographed some Sanderling last year, but I wasn't confident enough in the photos to qualify it as an actual sighting. Anyway.

When I pulled into the parking lot around 6:30am it was in the mid-50s and foggy. I walked over the dune separating the parking area from the beach and saw signs and roped-off areas for Snowy Plover nesting. That was a good sign! I quickly saw a small group of peeps gathered around a small tide pool. Right away I saw a few little whiteish birds here and there, and a quick look with binoculars showed them to be Snowy Plovers! It was hard to count them since the were running around a bit and blending into the crowd of Western Sandpipers, but I saw two or three. I put a mat down on the sand to lay on, and a flat dish to stabilize my camera, and I got down on my belly and elbows. I was very lucky — first that the birds were right there next to the parking area, and secondly that as I lay there for an hour or so they sometimes got pretty close. After laying there for a while taking several hundred shots, I walked down the beach for a few minutes. I think I saw 10 total Snowy Plovers, defintely at least 8. They are such charasmatic little birds!

The Sanderlings were maybe 50% larger than the Western Sandpipers. I took a bunch of shots of them to help confirm the ID, and when I got home I learned that they lack the hind toe that other peeps have, and some of my photos clearly showed this field mark. As I processed the photos over the last few days I became able to recognize them at a glance: their heads are relatively small compared to Western Sandpipers'.

These photos are © 2023 Phil Thompson, all rights reserved.

My "birds in review" collages can be found here.