Timing is sometimes everything in birding. I was on the bike trail, yesterday morning, and pulled to a stop at one of my favorite birding spots. It's at a point where the bike trail and a small stream just touch for distance of no more than a few yards, but it does provide me with a small window to the creek and its shore. I had no more than unclipped from the pedals on the bike, when a Solitary Sandpiper fluttered to a stop, directly below me on the shore. It gave me no more than a brief moment to enjoy the view in my Zeiss compact binocular, then it flew off down the creek, again. At that distance, even a compact binocular showed fine detail on the plumage and the color of the legs. Another minute earlier or later and I might not have seen the bird at all. Timing is everything in birding.