While I was laying on the beach in Grand Isle, Louisiana last week (no I wasn’t sunbathing, I was photographing birds with my camera and telephoto lens on a panning plate attached to a Frisbee on the sand) I photographed two types of shorebirds, Willets and my favorite, Sanderlings, seen above. What I love about Sanderlings, a small bird half the size of the Willets I photographed, is their attitude. They seem fearless. They are almost constantly on the move, scurrying up and down the beach to the edge of the surf and then suddenly dashing away from the water. They stop briefly to excavate a savory morsel from the sand then take off, zigzagging down the beach. It is always a fun challenge for me to photograph Sanderlings and then this one actually stopped momentarily as if in a face-off with me, a “here’s looking at you,” moment. I had a smile on my face the entire time I watched this bird. It was only a couple o minutes but it kept stopping to preen a feather, then it raced a foot or two, stopped again, and preened another feather. It was a very special few moments and then it raced out of range of my camera and disappeared from view.