Long-legged Essex bird

The furthest I have ever travelled for a bird that wasn't there was to Caerlaverock from Kent for a White-tailed Plover with my good friend Matt Jones. After four hours that morning staring at fog it eventually became clear that the bird had gone overnight. Holiday plans prevented me from joining Matt when he saw the relocated bird at Leighton Moss, and work commitments made an attempt at the more recent Seaforth bird impossible. Matt recently e-mailed me from New Zealand with some good-natured taunting about this, so news of presumably the same bird at Rainham proved too tempting to ignore. Finishing work at 16:30 allowed me to get there by 19:30 and watch this beautiful wader until near dusk. Even in this distant photo, taken in fading light, the striking yellow legs make identification easy.