When I first began to notice shorebirds, I was visiting friends in Port Aransas, Texas, a few years before I became interested in photography. When we’d walk on the beach, I was taken by the small birds scurrying to keep ahead of the waves washing ashore and I was fascinated by their antics. They plunged their beaks deep into the wet sand and sometimes pulled out tiny crustaceans. Their paths were erratic and it was a challenge to keep up with them. My friend Susan new the names of the shorebirds, I did not. She told me the tiniest birds scurrying around on that beach were Sanderlings, a type of sandpiper. I fell in love with these small, grayish birds. The only time I visited Port Aransas was in January so the birds were in their non-breeding plumage. When I took up photography and fell in love with what I call “Beach Panning,” I was able to stop them in their tracks with a fast shutter speed and photograph them up close at their level. But again, it was late fall or winter and the Sanderlings were still in their gray, non-breeding plumage. Until I saw them at Salisbury Beach in Massachussetts, in mid August, I’d never seen one in breeding plumage. They were unrecognizable to me and I needed to confirm their identity with my Merlin Bird ID App. This is a Sanderling in breeding plumage, behaving like Sanderlings do all year.