The conventional wisdom in looking for shorebirds is to go where there are the most, but if you are a beginner with this complex group and want to learn something about them, first, go to a place, even a local pond, where there may be many fewer, but you can spend time and get to them as your neighbors, perhaps you can get close to them, and with a smaller number you can concentrate on just the birds around you and note which ones leave and the new arrivals. Use your binoculars more rather than peer with a scope at a great distance to a larger number. If you learn some of the species at your local site well, some of those distant specks you might see later will make more sense. And prepare in advance. There are many rules that once learned, or kept in the back of your mind, will greatly facilitate your learning. As Pasteur famously said: "Chance favors the prepared mind." 

Jon Dunn started birding at age eight when he noticed an adult male Hooded Oriole at his home in Los Angeles. Jon has written a number of books, but is probably best known for the seven additions of the National Geographic, the last five with co-author Jonathan Alderfer. Jon (with Kimball L. Garrett) also wrote Warblers (1995) and Birds of Southern California, Status and Distribution (1981), again with Kimball. Jon has served many years on both the California Bird Records Committee and the ABA Checklist Committee and since 2000 has been a member of the North American Checklist Committee (NACC) of the AOS. Jon has lived much of his life in California, except for an eight year period in the 1990's when he lived in Dayton Ohio. Jon's maternal grandmother lived much of her life in Davenport, and he credits Pete Petersen's guidance, respect and kindness for a few short weeks in the early fall of 1968 to being determinative for his later modest successes later in his life. Pete taught Jon eastern birds, many of which he got to hold in his hands at Pete's banding operation at Pine HIll Cemetery in Davenport.