Spotted Sandpiper

Last year I was confused by Spotted Sandpipers in late Summer, but this year I'm a little wiser and know that Spotted Sandpipers loose their breast spots after breeding season. These pictures were taken at Fernhill Wetlands last Friday evening.

Spotted Sandpiper

"The more you learn, the less you know" the old saying goes and it easily applies to birding. Just when you think you getting a handle on things, you run across something that makes you realize how much you have to learn.
A week ago last Sunday, I ran across this sandpiper along the pond at Fernhill Wetland. It was savaging in the rocks along the shore. There was enough tall grass between the path and the shore to make for a bit of a hide-and-seek game between me and the bird. With enough patience I was able to get a few good pictures.
I did not recognize it so I was expecting to identify it as a new lifetime bird for me. Unfortunately, I could not find a sandpiper in any of my guides or on the web that looked quite like it. I hate it when that happens. I tried to convince myself that it was a Lesser Yellowlegs, but its legs just weren't long enough.
As I sat perplexed, I thought to myself, "When I run into this kind of problem, what ultimately is the usual answer?" Well, the answer lately has been that it is a juvenile of some familiar bird. As it turns out that could be the answer in this case. To test the theory I decided to search for "juvenile Spotted Sandpiper" on Google as that is what it most looked like, sans breast spots. As it turns out, the juvenile Spotted Sandpiper does not have spots on its breast. However, I also discovered that it is also true that mature birds loose their spots when not breeding. I'm guessing that is what this bird is as other than the missing spots, it looks like other Spotted Sandpipers I have seen and it looks fully mature.
Well, I'm bummed that it isn't a new bird for me, but I have learned something new and that is almost as good.

Least and Spotted Sandpiper

I heard some Killdeers along the partially flooded service road along the north side of Pintail Pond at Jackson Bottom. This was the lowest I've seen the water on this road since discovering the wetlands. Soon you'll be able to walk its full length without getting wet.
Upon a closer look I noticed there were also Sandpipers, so I thought I'd see how close I could get. As I feared, they didn't let me get too close. But then I got the idea that I could step a step off the trail and semi-hide in the low hanging trees along the road. Maybe they would come back to the water they seemed so interested in just a few moments earlier.
Sure enough, after just a couple minutes, both Least and Spotted Sandpipers returned and I was able to get some decent shots of them.
It's nice when a plan works out occasionally.

Spotted Sandpiper

Spotted Sandpipers are quite common now at TRNWR. They may have been for a while, but before they drained most of the water away and allowed public access to the service roads it was not very easy to get close enough to shore birds to identify them. Now that I am more familiar with them, I may be able to identify them from further away.

Spotted Sandpiper

This Spotted Sandpiper appears to know just where the safe zone begins. :-)