Part 18

The main flight is seemingly up the Mississippi Valley, but even in that region, the record is incomplete. The data available are: Louisiana, Bird Islands, May 18; Kentucky, Bowling Green, April 27; Missouri, April 15, and May 20; Illinois, Chicago, April 27; Ohio, Columbus, May 6, 1923 (only record); Iowa, Norway, April; Minnesota, Madison, May 16, and Wilder, May 21; Texas, Corpus Christi, March 17, and Gainesville, April 23; South Dakota, Sioux Falls, May 12, and Fort Sisseton, May 22; North Dakota, Jamestown, May 6, and Harrisburg, May 7; Mackenzie, Fort Chipewyan, May 24, and Fort Simpson, May 29; and Alaska, Demarcation Point, May 26.

Fall migration.--The fall record is more complete and dates of arrival and departure can be given with greater consistency. Early dates of arrival are: British Columbia, Chilliwack, July 23; Keewatin, Cape Eskimo, August 10; Manitoba, Shoal Lake, August 9; North Dakota, Grafton, August 14; South Dakota, Harding County, August 15; Nebraska, Neligh, August 12, and Waverly, August 14; Texas, Tivoli, August 3; Gainesville, August 4, and Brownsville, August 4; Minnesota, Minneapolis, August 1; Iowa, Charles City, August 1, and Sioux City, August 2; Indiana, Millers, August 30; Ohio, Lake County, August 19; Illinois, Chicago, August 16; Louisiana, Abbeville, August 4; Quebec, Godbout, August 7, and Henley Harbor, August 20; Maine, Scarboro, August 1, and Damariscane Island, August 26; New Hampshire, Rye Beach, August 25; Massachusetts, Ipswich, August 7, Cape Cod, August 16, and Nantucket, August 26; Rhode Island, Little Compton, July 22; New York, Canandaigua, July 24, Shelter Island, August 22, Syracuse, August 24, Rockaway, August 25, and Montauk Point, August 26; New Jersey, Toms River, September 8; Virginia, Wallops Island, September 5; North Carolina, Currituck, September 12; Florida, Lake Jackson, September 12; Costa Rica, San Jose, September 7; Colombia, Cienaga, August 12; Peru, Pebas, August 3, and Yquitos, September 2; and Paraguay, Puerto Pinasco, September 21.

Late dates of fall departure are: Washington, Westport, September 3, and Tacoma, September 20; California, Morro, September 14, 1923 (only record for the State); Montana, Yellowstone County, September 1; Colorado, Barr, August 25 and September 4 (only records); Manitoba, Lake Winnipeg, September 5, and Oak Lake, September 9; North Dakota, Jamestown, September 30; Nebraska, Lincoln, October 25; Kansas, Salina, October 10; Texas, Brownsville, October 7, and Corpus Christi, October 10; Wisconsin, Pittston, September 7, and Rock Prairie, September 10; Michigan, Kalamazoo County, September 17; Ohio, Columbus, September 9, Indiana, Lafayette, September 10; Illinois, Chicago, September 28, and Beach, October 2; Missouri, Independence, September 15; Kentucky, Bowling Green, September 7; Quebec, Magdalen Islands, September 13, and Port Burwell, September 28; Maine, Cape Elizabeth, September 13; Massachusetts, Nantucket, September 8, Plum Island, September 15, Monomoy Island, September 19, and Cape Cod, September 24; Rhode Island, Middletown, September 10, Newport, September 15, and Compton, September 23; Connecticut, New Haven, September 30; New York, Orient Point, September 8, Rockaway, September 13, and Mastic, October 6; Lesser Antilles, Barbados, October 6; Costa Rica, San Jose, October 8; and Panama, Gatun, October 18.

Casual records.--The buff-breasted sandpiper has been recorded as taken once at Cardenas, Cuba (Gundlach). There are fifteen or sixteen records for the British Isles, all being for the period from July to September, except one, taken in May, 1829, at Formby, Lancashire. It also has been recorded from Abbeville, Picardy, France (Dalgleish); and from the Province of Owari, Japan (Stejneger). A record of this species from Heligoland, May 9, 1847, is considered by Seebohn as possibly T. subminuta.

Egg Dates.--Arctic coasts of Canada and Alaska: 37 records, June 1 to July 18; 19 records, June 28 to July 3.

ACTITIS MACULARIA (Linnaeus)

SPOTTED SANDPIPER

HABITS

Contributed by Winsor Marrett Tyler

The spotted sandpiper is one of the successful species of birds.

The old writers, speaking of a time when the surface of the country was very different from at present, are in accord as to the abundance of this bird in North America. Wilson (1832) refers to it as “very common”; Nuttall (1834) says it is “one of the most familiar and common of all the New England marsh birds”; and Audubon (1840) reports it “quite abundant along the margins of the Mississippi, the Ohio, and their tributaries,” and “on the island of Jestico, in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, about 20 pairs had nests and eggs, * * * and the air was filled with the pleasant sound of their voices.”

At the present time we find the bird apparently little diminished in numbers. In the numerous local lists published from every part of the country the spotted sandpiper almost always has a place. Notations such as “seen daily throughout the summer” or “common along the streams” indicate the wide distribution and abundance of the species. Indeed it is the best known of our sandpipers, not only because of its extensive breeding range, extending from coast to coast and northward into Alaska and Labrador, but by reason of its individual and peculiar habit of flight and its characteristic notes.

Almost every inhabitant of the United States, sometime during the year, may meet this graceful little wader stepping delicately along the margin of some sandy pond, the shore of the sea, or skimming from perch to perch on the rocks bordering a mountain stream.

Poised well above the ground on its slim greenish-yellow legs it walks slowly and carefully along the shore, picking up a bit of food now on this side, now on that. It goes forward with a switching motion, head reached well forward and a little lowered. Except when creeping up within reach of an insect or when its attention is riveted on the snapping up of a bit of food the tail is almost continuously in motion up and down. At the least alarm the motion is increased to a wider arc until the posterior half of the bird’s body is rapidly teetering. A little increase in alarm and the bird is off on vibrating wings held stiffly and cupped with the tips depressed, sailing along the shore away from danger. As the bird takes wing it gives, almost without exception, its whistled call, peet-weet-weet, a call so associated with the bird that Nuttall long ago give it the name peet-weet.

Spring.--The spotted sandpiper moves northward earlier than the other sandpipers. It enters the transitional zone in late April and early May, its time of arrival coinciding very closely with the chewink, another ground feeder. It returns to its breeding ground inconspicuously, never passing by in the large flocks characteristic of many sandpipers, but appears on the first day of its arrival running about on the shore of its chosen bit of water, apparently settled for the season. In this habit of not gathering into flocks it resembles its relative the solitary sandpiper.

Wright and Harper (1913) speak of a few birds, left behind after most of the species had spread over the country to the north, tarrying in the Okefinokee Swamp till late in the spring:

The spotted sandpiper was a distinct surprise as a summer resident of the swamp. Not only is this several hundred miles south of its known breeding range, but one would not expect it to find a suitable haunt in the Okefinokee. The lakes and rivers are practically shoreless; they are simply open spaces in the otherwise continuous cypress swamps. However, the logs and driftwood near the edges of Billys Lake serve as teetering stands; half a dozen were seen here on May 11, one on June 5, and still another a few days later. The species probably does not breed in this latitude.

Courtship.--The courtship of the spotted sandpiper has not been observed very minutely. Some of the few published reports on the subject show a discrepancy in details, and one, giving an instance of display by a bird proved by dissection to be a female, casts doubts on all records of courtship based on sight identification and raises the question as to the respective rôles played by the sexes in the home-life of the species.

Bradford Torrey (1885), assuming the bird to be a male, speaks of

A spotted sandpiper, whose capers I amused myself with watching, one day last June, on the shore of Saco Lake. As I caught sight of him, he was straightening himself up, with a pretty, self-conscious air, at the same time spreading his white-edged tail, and calling, tweet, tweet, tweet. Afterwards he got upon a log, where, with head erect and wings thrown forward and downward, he ran for a yard or two, calling as before. This trick seemed especially to please him, and was several times repeated. He ran rapidly, and with a comical prancing movement; but nothing he did was half as laughable as the behavior of his mate, who all this while dressed her feathers without once deigning to look at her spouse’s performance.

Whittle (1922) describes a similar action of a bird observed in Montana on May 29:

One of the birds, judged to be a male, was seen standing on a long, inclined timber, while another, presumed to be a female, fed close by along the shore. The male first walked the length of the timber and then flew to another one, where he depressed and spread his tail, and, without teetering, stalked slowly along its entire length, with head bent low.

Lewis O. Shelley (1925) reports from New Hampshire a courtship display which differs from the two previous ones. Here again the respective sexes are assumed:

A female sandpiper came running along the brook, occasionally stopping to pick up an insect and teeter, then run on again. Behind her were two males, the first strutting along, looking much like a goose, craning his neck up, swelling out his throat, drooping his wings, and spreading his tail; the second kept well to the rear, and did no strutting.

Every time the female stopped for a second, or slowed, the male would dart past her and stop, throw his head higher, and make a fump, fump, fump, in his throat. If that failed to attract her attention, he would again pass her and alternately spread wings and tail. This performance went on all the afternoon, until almost dusk.

This observation describes a courtship in which the behavior of the aggressive bird corresponds closely, especially in the movements of the head, with the action of the bird noted in the next quotation--a bird proved by dissection to be a female.

A. J. Van Rossem (1925) gives the following extract from Dr. Loye Miller’s notebook:

Altitude, 9,000 feet; Mammoth Lakes, Inyo County, Calif.; July 4, 1923: [spotted] sandpipers are just beginning to pair, and several seen in courting flights. One especially active bird was shot and proved to be a female. She came to an imitation of the call--soared over a fallen log before alighting on it. She then ruffed out the feathers and strutted like a turkey cock, with head thrown back. The ova were the size of buckshot.