New bird! This little Semipalmated Sandpiper is the 190th bird I have photographed, IDed and blogged.

I was at Fort Pierce Inlet this morning and took a quick walk out on the jetty after rain.

Have I mentioned the sargassum is a bit of a problem on area beaches right now? This is the worst I’ve seen it – very thick and full of trash.

Ruddy Turnstone goes poof.

At first I thought the solo little sandpiper with the turnstones was a Sanderling.

But it seemed smaller, especially next to the turnstone, and active in a different way, zipping around here and there.

Preening Ruddy Turnstone and the little sandpiper.

Snowy Egret.

The flock of turnstones and little sandpiper. First fisherman arrives.

One of these birds is not like the others.

I checked for birds resembling Sanderlings on All About Birds and thought this might be a Western Sandpiper. I posted the guess to What’s This Bird, to doublecheck, and was helpfully informed it was a Semipalmated Sandpiper.

Audubon…

Small and plain in appearance, this sandpiper is important in terms of sheer numbers. It often gathers by the thousands at stopover points during migration. Semipalmated Sandpipers winter mostly in South America, and studies have shown that they may make a non-stop flight of nearly 2000 miles from New England or eastern Canada to the South American coast. The name “Semipalmated” refers to slight webbing between the toes, visible only at extremely close range.