It’s much easiser to approach shore birds from the water than from on land. They’re much more tolerant of a man in a kayak than one on foot. Wednesday morning’s exceptionally high-tide allowed me to approach Bird Shoal in a way that let me put the sun behind me without having to leave the kayak and the water. This allowed me to get nice and close to several Short Billed Dowitchers. The key to making good photographs of small birds is getting close… to “fill the frame with the subject” as they say. The second key is to be approximately between your subject and the sun. Obviously the conditions Wednesday morning were just right to make that all possible.