Sanderlings - 22nd May 2026

Every May at my local Farmoor Reservoir I eagerly anticipate the arrival of my favourite wading bird, the Sanderling.  They do not stop for long, touching down on the concrete shores to run along feeding, restoring their energy levels before resuming heading northwards to far off romantic destinations that I am unlikely ever to visit.

Watching their tiny forms, forever active, mving at incredible speed along the water's edge it is not lost on me the transformation of imagination and reality their transient, all too brief presence here brings to the moment.

For the short time they are here the sheer slog and mundane monotony of birding a reservoir that is so often devoid of birds is elevated above the everyday, as the wonder of migration and what these birds represent  imparts something infinitely more special.

It is of course impossible to know where exactly they have come from and where they are bound. A clue came some years ago when a Sanderling touched down on the reservoir  bearing various coloured flags and rings on its legs which, after referral told me that it had been ringed in Greenland as a chick the year before.

So Greenland is a definite destination, Greenland! Just think of it. This bird will fly all the way there and back each year for as long as it lives.Others will head to the high arctic in Siberia, again an almost unbelievable feat of endurance and yet here they are for a day, maybe two, bringing a sense of magic to disguise the prosaic, sense numbing reality of a utilitarian concrete bowl in the heart of England.

Why do they turn up here in the first place? They are a bird of seashores surely? They must be taking a shortcut across the centre of England, flying on a northwest heading from wherever they have originated be it on the east or southern coast of England, or further from the coasts of mainland Europe or even Africa. Passing high, unseen and un noticed  over central England, the geography hardly offers a suitable shoreline on which to stop unless they see a large body of water such as a reservoir or gravel pit. Possibly tired and hungry they decide to drop down to what looks to them a suitable place to break their long journey. Many others, I am sure do not stop, so we.are only granted the merest hint at what is going on above our heads in the infinite sky and a world and existence unknown to us.

No one Sanderling looks like another. Dunlins in summer plumage for example all look very much the same but Sanderlings in spring and early summer vary enormously from the almost white of their winter plumage to a rich orange brown that is their breeding plumage.Why is this - is the next question. 

Sanderlings breed when they are two years old which means they will breed in the third year of their lives. For the second year of their life many are said to remain in their wintering areas. My suggestion is that the white birds I see at the reservoir are non breeders born in the previous year and now in their second year of life but making the journey to learn the ropes so to speak before breeding in the next year if they survive. The orange birds are in their third year of life or older and going to breed and therefore have adopted full breeding plumage. I could well be mistaken but it seems a plausible hypothesis to me.

Others have suggested that the white birds have delayed their moult until they have completed their migration and will acquire full breeding plumage on the breeding grounds but I feel this is doubtful as time is of the essence, with only a very short breeding window of 7-8 weeks in the high arctic regions where they are bound.

Others suggest the white birds are for some reason moulting to summer plumage slower than the orange birds which have completed their moult faster. Again this is possibe but not for me.

All Sanderlings are beautiful in both form and plumage but to see them in their summer finery is a rare privilege and is only possible when they arrive on the reservoir unless I wish to make a long journey to the coast.

Today, when summer came to Oxfordshire in a weather perfection of heat and a welcome cooling breeze, five Sanderlings touched down on the wave washed concrete shores of the causeway.

As is often the case they were extremely confiding and allowed one to approach to within literally feet. The group demonstrated perfectly the extremes of plumage referrred to earlier with two birds rich orange and two very much white and even one somewhere in between.

I sat on the low wall of the causeway and watched them dodging the waves and spray of the wind ruffled blue waters. It was almost as if they were on some beach on the coast but no, here they were at Farmoor Reservoir, largely ignored by the public who now increasingly frequent the reservoir.

They will be gone tomorrow and I will feel the loss as the reservoir returns to its mundane normality and the imagined stardust that the Sanderlings have sprinkled will have dissipated as if on the summer breeze