The Sanderling are an amazing little shorebird that treks the globe every year, travelling from the artic to our southern beaches and back every year.

Each summer, they land tired from a journey of thousands of kilometres weighing less than a chook egg (<60 grams) having flapped the ENTIRE way to the southern hemisphere (they don’t ever glide!)

Then they spend their summer holidays on our beach, fattening themselves up to a pre-return flight weight over over 120grams, and setting off for the northern Summer in about April.

We don’t know much about these amazing globetrotters, so a project looking to try and capture images of tagged birds to see when and where they are spotted around the globe is underway.

The project is also placing GPS trackers (which weigh less than 5 grams) on some birds so chart their course around the globe.

How can you help this project? Take a picture!

If you go to one of our southern beaches and see these little birds – usually on the water’s edge running in and out with waves, and/or in flocks by thousands – we’d love it if you took photo for us so we can see their leg tags.

This helps us know which birds are coming and going each year, and we can track how long they’ve been doing it for.

More information about the project and how to take a picture of the birds, and then what to do with it, can be found HERE

All images submitted to us go in the running to win a Jimmi Buscombe limited edition print.