A juvenile Stilt Sandpiper reported by Marilyn Hewish, Grace Lewis, Dean Hewish and Joanne Van den Broek on the 18th December was still present three days later. After initially giving birders the run-around, it's finally appearing settled with Greenshanks at the T-Section lagoons, opposite The Spit Nature Reserve on Point Wilson Road near Werribee. This location requires you to attend with someone who has a key and permit to enter, though the lagoons are also viewable by scope from the road. The bird tends to be quite flighty. The nearby naval base at Pt Wilson operates occasional helicopter flights over the site, which today, caused the bird to relocate to other ponds within the complex. It tends to stay in the middle of the ponds, so a scope is essential. The closest we came to it was about 50m. You're looking for a wader that's much smaller than the Greenshanks and darker in colour. It has a strong supercilium and long, slightly down-curved bill. Imagine a large, slightly longer-billed Curlew Sandpiper. The legs are long and bright yellowy-green and it tends to feed frenetically, often up to its belly in water. The cap has a strongly-defined dark centre and slightly darker blush-marks on the cheek coverts (though these are hard to see in strong light). The back's quite dirty and mottled and there is some spotting on the breast sides. In flight, look for its uniformly mid-grey tail and white rump. Stilt Sandpiper is an exceptionally rare bird in Australia. The only report this decade, from Stockton Spit near Newcastle in Feb 2004 was rejected by BARC. Prior to the present bird, there have been four confirmed records, though one of these from 8 Dec - 30 Mar 1991, is only just being reviewed by BARC (and will almost certainly be accepted). The other three records were from Sanderson Sewage Farm (Darwin) 30 Aug - 4 Sep 1980, Alice Springs Sewage Farm 7 - 16 Oct 1991 and Werribee Sewage Farm 17 Jan 1993. History suggests that this month's bird will stick around for at least a short while but as it could be another ten years before another turns up, you might want to get yourself down there quick! Less