Part 5

Nesting.--Nothing definite is known of the breeding range or nesting habits of the western solitary sandpiper. It is supposed to breed in the interior of British Columbia and Alaska. The following observations, made near Circle, Alaska, by Dr. Wilfred H. Osgood (1909) throw some light on the subject:

Within a radius of several miles from Circle one or more adults were found about almost every woodland swamp. In most cases they acted like parent birds anxious for the safety of their young. Whenever we entered certain precincts, they hovered nervously about, calling loudly, or alighted on nearby trees scolding. The first pair seen near Charlie Creek exhibited such actions on the evening of June 22, and we made a hasty search in the twilight for young birds, but found nothing. The excitement of the old birds seemed to be greatest while we were in a small grassy swamp, so the next day we made a more careful search. The old birds were even more excited than before, and it was some time before we detected that, besides the loud cries ringing all about us, a faint peeping was issuing from several points in the grass. Guided by this scarcely audible peeping, we soon found three downy young birds widely separated and squatting aimlessly in the grass. They are quite small, exactly of a size, and none shows the least indication of growing feathers; evidently they belonged to one clutch, and could not have been out of the eggs more than one or two days. The eggs of this species, like those of the European green sandpiper, have been found in the nests of other birds in trees. The small opening where the birds were found was bounded on one side by an extensive area grown with willows of relatively small size, but on the other side was only a thin line of willows and then alders, birch, poplars, and heavy spruce, in which probably such birds as olive-backed thrushes, robins, and varied thrushes nested in abundance. Therefore there was ample opportunity for the sandpipers to lay their eggs in the nests of these birds.

Plumages.--The downy young referred to above are thus described by Robert Ridgway, (1919):

General color of upper parts cinnamon drab, longitudinally varied with brownish black; forehead and crown with a broad median streak of black; a sharply defined black loral streak, extending from bill to eye; a narrow black stripe across auricular region (longitudinally), or a black postauricular spot; occiput brown centrally, black exteriorly, the black border sending from each side a forward branch; an oval patch of brownish black on median portion of rump, this bordered along each side by a stripe of pale dull vinaceous-buff, the two buffy stripes converging or almost uniting both anteriorly and posteriorly; wings cinnamon drab, margined posteriorly with dull white, the brown portion with several irregular spots or blotches of black; under parts dull white.

Subsequent plumages and molts are doubtless similar to those of the eastern race.

Winter.--As mentioned under the preceding subspecies, we know very little about the winter distribution of the two races. Dr. Frank M. Chapman (1926) says that most of his specimens from Ecuador are of this form, which he calls “a common winter resident from the coast to the tableland, arriving from the north at least as early as August 10.” Dr. Alexander Wetmore (1926) says:

The specimens taken at Formosa and General Roca belong certainly to the western form, on the basis of size (male, wing, 134.3; female, wing 136.7 mm.), dorsal coloration, and the presence of mottling on the inner web of the outer primary. A female from Lazcano, Uruguay, has molted the outer primaries, but on the basis of other measurements and on the presence of some dark, buff mottling on the back seems within the limit of variation of cinnamomea and is identified as the same as the other two. Though the typical subspecies solitaria is recorded definitely from Colombia by Chapman, these findings seem to cast a doubt on its presence as far south as Argentina.

DISTRIBUTION

Range.--Western North America and South America.

Breeding range.--No unquestioned set of eggs of the western solitary sandpiper has thus far been recorded. Downy young with their parents have, however, been taken in western Alberta (Henry House) and in Alaska (Circle, Kowak River, Eagle, and Charlie Creek). There also is a strong probability of their breeding in British Columbia (Cariboo District, and Ducks).

Winter range.--As mentioned under T. s. solitaria, the two races of this species on their wintering grounds in South America have been distinguished only on a few occasions. It is probable that they either occupy the same winter grounds or that their ranges overlap. All specimens collected by Wetmore (1926) from Uruguay, Paraguay, and Argentina, prove to be this form, indicating that it may winter south of true solitaria. It also has been taken by Chapman in Ecuador (Guayaquil, Loja, and Cebollal).

Spring migration.--Early dates of spring arrival are: Texas, Samuels, April 15, and Henrietta, April 19; New Mexico, State College, May 4, and Las Vegas, May 8; Colorado, Colorado Springs, May 1, Denver, May 4, and Boulder, May 5; Montana, Terry, May 7, and Billings, May 10; Alberta, Athabaska Landing, May 5, Edmonton, May 10, and Sandy Creek, May 14; Mackenzie, Fort Simpson, May 10, and Fort Providence, May 14; Arizona, Verde Valley, April 20, and Paradise, May 9; California, Los Angeles, April 10, Gridley, April 23, and Fort Crook, May 4; Oregon, Anthony, April 16, and Malheur Lake, April 17; Washington, Tacoma, May 6; British Columbia, Okanagan Landing, May 5, and Chilliwack, May 7; Yukon, Forty-mile, May 8; and Alaska, Tocatna Forks, May 12, Nulato, May 15, and Kowak River, May 18.

Late dates of spring departure are: Colorado, Boulder, May 25, Denver, May 28, and Grand Junction, June 3; and Wyoming, Fort Saders, May 25.

Fall migration.--Early dates of fall arrival are: California, Santa Barbara, July 22; Arizona, Apache, July 29, Cave Spring, August 1, and White Mountains, August 10; Montana, Terry, June 28; Wyoming, New Castle, July 7; Colorado, Lytle, July 6, Middle Park, July 13, and El Paso County, July 23; New Mexico, Zuni Mountains, July 24; and Texas, Brownsville, July 31.

Late dates of fall departure are: Alaska, Taku River, September 15; British Columbia, Okanagan Landing, September 26; Washington, Seattle, September 11; California, Santa Barbara, September 7; Arizona, San Pedro River, October 10; Lower California, Agua Escondido, November 18; Montana, Missoula, September 4, Terry, September 5, and Bitterroot Valley, September 7; Wyoming, Yellowstone Park, September 4, and Green River, September 5; Colorado, Boulder, September 18, Florissant, October 5, and Greeley, October 25; and New Mexico, Acoma, September 27, and Glenrio, October 2.

TRINGA OCROPHUS Linnaeus

GREEN SANDPIPER

Contributed, by Francis Charles Robert Jourdain

HABITS

The green sandpiper is only an accidental visitor to North America. Swainson and Richardson (1831) record it from Hudson Bay, but this is now generally acknowledged to be probably due to error. However, Dr. T. M. Brewer (1878) mentions a specimen obtained at Halifax, Nova Scotia, in 1872 or 1873 and forming part of a collection made there which was purchased by J. E. Harting from a dealer at Woolwich. The evidence is far from satisfactory and Seebohm’s remarks (1884) should be consulted, but the skins in question are still in existence in the collection of the British Museum.

Courtship.--It is a most remarkable fact that though the green sandpiper is widely distributed during the breeding season over temperate Europe and is by no means a shy or retiring bird, even though it haunts the recesses of wooded marshes and wet forests, yet there is hardly anything on record about its courtship activities. Seebohm writes that the notes “are no doubt modulated into a musical trill as the male performs his amatory excursions in the air during the pairing season,” but adds that he has never had the good fortune either to hear the love song or to find it described. Fortunately Prof. C. J. Patten (1906) met with a pair which frequented a moorland stream in the neighborhood of Sheffield from May 3 to June 4, 1903. He says:

They were always to be found in the same spot, and after feeding they frequently flitted on to a stone wall, where for a little while they would remain motionless. At intervals they suddenly shot up into the air for a short distance, darting down again to the same stone with astonishing speed. On the wing they displayed great activity and adroitness, the female twisting and turning to escape the addresses of the male.

Newton (1896) writes:

Yet in the breeding season, even in England, the cock bird has been seen to rise high in air and perform a variety of evolutions on the wing, all the while piping what without any violence of language may be called a song.

Doctor Hartert (1920), speaking of its habits on its breeding grounds, remarks that it may be seen shooting through the air with the speed of an arrow, and opines that this must be the love flight. With the exception of these notes and some references to the song (which are referred to under the heading of Voice), I can find nothing in the literature with regard to the actual courtship, except Hartert’s statement that on the ground the male trips about, with tail outspread like a fan, calling loudly. When, however, a pair has definitely settled down in its breeding territory, both birds are exceedingly noisy and demonstrative. Wheelwright (1864) speaks of the “boisterous, noisy behavior” of this bird, and in his later work on Sweden (1865) remarks:

Now, of all our waders, this is the noisiest, and there is little trouble in finding the locality where it breeds, for the old male is always about some brook in the neighborhood, and I have before noticed that the loud, wild cry of the green sandpiper and greenshank are much alike.

Nesting.--The nesting habits of the green sandpiper have been fully described, but were practically unknown to naturalists till about 1852–1860, when quite independently Forester, Weise, and Hintz (sen.), in Germany, and H. W. Wheelwright in Sweden, published the results of their discoveries. The story is told in detail by Forest-Inspector Weise, in the Journal für Ornithologie for 1855 (p. 514). He had first heard of the habit of adopting old nests of other species in trees from an old ranger, but naturally discredited it. However, in 1845, the same man brought him four sandpipers’ eggs from a nest in an old beech. Next spring Weise found a green sandpiper breeding in a pine about 25 or 30 feet from the ground. He climbed to the nest and found the four eggs so highly incubated that the young could be heard squeaking inside the shells. Two other nests in similar sites came to his notice subsequently, the last on May 25, 1855, when the four eggs were already chipped.

Forester, W. Hintz 1, writing in the same periodical for 1862 (p. 460) says that he had found sandpipers’ nests in trees as far back as 1818, but at that time he had no correspondents who took any interest in birds’ eggs and only took a clutch or two for his own collection. On April 26, 1834, he found a clutch of this species in a nest of the song thrush (Turdus philomelus) and from 1852 onward, as the circumstances began to be known to German naturalists, he found a long series of nests with eggs of which he gives full details. Most of these eggs were laid in old nests of song thrush (Turdus philomelus), but some were placed in old nests of pigeon (probably Columba palumbus) or squirrel’s dreys, and in one case the young were found in an old nest of red-backed shrike (Lanius collurio). Another curious case recorded is that in which an old aspen (Populus tremula) was broken off and a hole which had been occupied in the previous year by a pied flycatcher, contained a brood of young green sandpipers, which had apparently only been hatched half an hour before. On the forester’s approach the young birds jumped from the hole and concealed themselves among the grass. Some further details are also given in a letter from Hintz sent to the Rev. H. S. Hawkins and published in Dresser’s Birds of Europe; also in the Journal für Ornithologie for 1864 (p. 186).