Michael Palin on the Sanderling

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As Sir Michael Palin reveals, sanderling’s are rarely still. Resembling a child’s clockwork toy, the black legs of a sanderling blur as it scampers back and forth along a sandy beach in winter. It is one of our smallest waders weighing about the same as a tennis ball. Despite their size sanderlings are long distant migrants known to circumnavigate most of the globe. Individual birds have been tracked completing an annual round trip of over 30,000 kilometres. Producer : Andrew Dawes for BBC Audio in Bristol Studio Engineer : Ilse Lademann