Part 7

The comparison to the trill of the grasshopper warbler seems very far fetched, and would apply far better to the persistent trilling of Temminck’s stint. In fact the note reads like a paragraph drafted from filed notes jotted down when the writer was surrounded by singing stints and sandpipers; the metallic and musical song and dashing flight being that of the wood sandpiper and the monotonous trill being that of Temminck’s stint. To my ear the Finnish name of the bird, “liro,” exactly describes the ringing musical cadence which one hears overhead so frequently by the lake sides and marshes of Sweden and Finland. Buturlin notes the song as peri, peri, logi, logi, logi, and von Droste’s translation is also expressive hithitit-tli-a, tli-a, tli-a, tlia. It is obvious that this bears no likeness whatever to the monotonous droning note, rising and falling slightly as the bird turns its head, of Locustella naevia. Occasionally the song of the wood sandpiper is uttered while the bird is perched on a bush or in treeless districts even on the ground.

Nesting.--Although often not concealed with any art, the nest of the wood sandpiper is by no means an easy one to find, as the possible area is so vast, while the sitting bird frequently remains on the eggs until almost trodden on. In consequence most nests are discovered by accident, when the bird has been flushed at one’s feet, or by long and systematic beating of likely ground in the neighborhood of a singing male. The nest is, however, almost invariably on some slight eminence, a hummock in some cases as much as 2 feet high, though often smaller, and on dry ground, though there may be water within a foot or so. The actual nest is merely a hollow in the ground, lined with bents and grasses and is usually to be found on low-lying ground where willow scrub, heath mosses, and rank grasses furnish a certain amount of cover. This is the normal European site, but H. Leyborne Popham (1897), while collecting on the Yenisei in 1895, found that out of five nests discovered in that season, only one was placed on the ground, while the eggs in the other four cases were laid in the numerous old nests of fieldfares (Turdus pilaris) and other thrushes which were to be seen in great numbers in the trees. In 1900 Mr. Popham (1901) was able to confirm these observations, for in the forest district two more clutches were taken from old thrushes’ nests, while at the edge of the tundra two nests were found on the ground. That this habit is not strictly confined to the forest districts of Asia was proved by Lieut. S. A. Davies (1895), who visited the upper waters of the River Muonio on the borders of Finland and Sweden in 1904. He obtained a clutch from an old nest of great grey shrike (Lanius excubitor excubitor), placed in the fork of a birch about 20 feet from the ground. A. Cnattingius also found the eggs on one occasion in Sweden in a fieldfare’s nest, 8 feet from the ground. There is some evidence that in certain parts of the range this species breeds almost in colonies. Collett has described a case of this kind from the high field of southern Norway, and Forester Hintz (sen.) writes that on one marshy flat of about 60 acres in Mecklenberg from 7 to 9 pairs were breeding, and that on May 25, 1858, he received no fewer than 26 fresh and partly incubated eggs from this locality.

Eggs.--These are normally four in number, pyriform in shape and thin shelled. The ground color varies from a beautiful pale green to creamy white and exceptionally to warm buff. They are spotted and blotched, more heavily at the large end, with warm reddish brown, some eggs have most of the markings small, but others have large and almost confluent blotches. There are also a few purplish brown shell marks. The measurements of 100 eggs average 38.34 by 26.4 millimeters; the eggs showing the four extremes measure =42= by 28.1, 41.5 by =28.5=, =35.5= by 25 and 37 by =24.4= millimeters.

Young.--Both sexes take part in incubation; all the birds shot by Popham from the nest in 1895 were males, but in 1900 he found that out of two killed one was a male and the other a female. Collett also notes that both sexes have incubation patches. When the young are hatched the parents display the greatest anxiety, but the male bird seems to take the greater share in brooding and guarding them. On one occasion H. J. Pearson (1904) surprised a bird with four young only about a day old in a marsh. He placed the young in his pocket after having spent half an hour in finding them, though they were fully exposed to view and all within 10 yards. The young soon began to cry out and the parent bird, which he surmised to be the male, followed him nearly a mile, often settling within 5 feet and expressing his views. He then flew back to the marsh, but actually returned and settled on a low shed near the house. Lieut. S. A. Davies (1895) having caught a brood of young, placed them on the ground in a marsh, first in one place and then in another, in order to watch them.

The male bird would run excitedly in and out of the tussocks, searching everywhere till he heard their feeble chirp. Then he would run toward them and settle down a yard or two off, quickening his note to a continuous giff-giff-giff. Then all the young had to tumble along laboriously (for they could hardly walk) till they reached the male bird who tucked them safely under his wings; once or twice the female bird appeared on the scene for a minute or two, when both would soar in the air like drumming snipe.

Plumages.--The molts and plumages are fully described in A Practical Handbook of British Birds, edited by H. F. Witherby (1920), to which the reader is referred.

Food.--The greater part of the food consists of insects and their larvae, but worms are also taken in some numbers and small mollusca, as well as spiders. Among insects the following classes may be mentioned: Beetles (Coleoptera), including many water beetles, Haliplus, Hydroporus, Dytiscus, Berosus, Dryops, Helichus, Phylobius (all recorded by Hesse), and Gyrinus, Hydroporus, Donacia, and Colymbetes (R. Gray). Of Diptera, Hesse records larva of Stratiomys (also recorded by Bar), and among Rhyncota, Plea minutissima (once by Hesse). Rey also met with Arachnida (spiders), and Jäckel records small fish.

Behavior.--Many observers have called attention to the habit of perching on trees. Seebohm (1884) mentions having shot specimens from the summit of high bare trees at least 65 feet from the ground, and similar observations have been made wherever it has been met with in forested regions. Beside the love song already described, this bird has an alarm note, which Davies renders as tchick-tchick, or giff-giff, and which is generally uttered from the top of a bush or post. A. Chapman phrases this note as chirkop, chirkop, chib, chib.

Fall.--From July to October it appears often singly, but also at times in flocks in Great Britain. As a rule these flocks are of no great size, but on July 26, 1867, Mr. Power met with large numbers at Rainham, Kent, and when one had been shot others rose on all sides, forming one large flock, which flew round and round, keeping up a continual whistle. He estimated the number at 80–100.

Winter.--During the winter months it haunts mud banks at the mouths of rivers or marshes and streams inland in small flocks, or sometimes in pairs, feeding on worms and small insects in southern Africa. Its habit of perching on trees and bushes has also been noted when wintering in northern Africa (Tunisia). On the whole, it may be described as a fresh-water haunting species, usually avoiding the neighborhood of the sea.

DISTRIBUTION

Breeding range.--Not on the Faeroes, as stated by Ridgway, but formerly in very small numbers in Great Britain, Holland, Jutland, Scandinavia, north Germany locally. Finland, the Baltic Republics, and Russia generally; also in Asia, east across Siberia to Kamtschatka and the Commander Isles, north to about 75° on the Yenisei and 71° on the Lena. Reports of breeding in south Europe (Spain, north Italy, Pyrenees, etc.) require confirmation.

Winter range.--Africa, south to Cape Province; Asia, southern Arabia, Iraq (chiefly on passage), India and Ceylon, Burma, the Malay Peninsula, and southeast China; the Malay Archipelago (Borneo, Sumatra, Java, Celebes, Timor, Philippines, etc.); and Australia.

Spring migration.--It leaves its winter quarters in South Africa in March, is common in the swamps of Morocco toward the end of April, fairly plentiful in Tunisia in April and also in numbers in Egypt, some remaining till May. Most have left Iraq by mid May, and the departure from India, Ceylon, and Burma also takes place in May. They pass Gibraltar from March 9 to early May; Corsica, April 12 to May 28; Cyprus, April–May (late date May 20); Corfu, April 19–May 6; while a few visit the south and east coast of Great Britain in April and May. On the lower Petchora they did not arrive till May 26.

Fall migration.--From Portugal it is recorded on August 18, Spain (early date, August 4), passes through Italy in some numbers from August to October, leaving Sweden in September and passing the eastern Pyrenees in September-October. It reaches Iraq in August, but rarely stays after October; arrives in India and Burma in August; and in South Africa in September-October, early dates, August, Transvaal (August 28) and Zambesi River.

Casual records.--Faeroes (H. C. Muller), Madeira (R. Gomez), Canaries (occasional D. A. Bannerman), Hawaiian Isles, and Sanak Island, Alaska (C. Littlejohn).

Egg dates.--In Holland, May 11 to 25 (9 dates); Jutland and Germany, May 7–25 (about 18 dates, mostly after May 20); south Sweden from mid May onward; Lapland, June 3–16 (16 dates), June 17–27 (11 dates), July 7 (one date).

CATOPTROPHORUS SEMIPALMATUS SEMIPALMATUS (Gmelin)

EASTERN WILLET

HABITS

A score of years or so ago it seemed as if this large showy wader was destined to disappear from at least the northern portion of its range on the Atlantic coast. It had entirely ceased to breed in many of its former haunts and was nearly extirpated in others. Most of the birds that we shot on migration in New England were immature birds from the West. In Wilson’s (1832) time it bred “in great numbers--along the shores of New York, New Jersey, Delaware, and Maryland.” Audubon (1840) wrote that “a few have been known to breed not far from New Bedford in Massachusetts,” probably on some of the islands off the coast. In 1875 H. B. Bailey (1876) found it breeding “in large numbers” on Cobb Island, Va.; when we visited this locality in June, 1907, there were not over two or three pairs of willets breeding there; they have increased since then under protection. Maj. G. Ralph Meyer wrote to me in 1922 that about 15 pairs bred on Cobb Island and 5 or 6 pairs on Hog Island that year. It does not now breed in any numbers, so far as I know, north of South Carolina, except in the Nova Scotia colonies.

Although our check list does not recognize that fact, it has been known for many years that willets breed regularly in southern Nova Scotia, though during the early years of this century they came very near being extirpated. Dr. Spencer Trotter (1904) recorded the willet as “one of the most conspicuous inhabitants of the tidal marshes” near Barrington, Shelburne County. But when I visited that locality with him in July, 1907, we found only one pair. Evidently they began to increase again after that under adequate protection. Harrison F. Lewis (1920) found them breeding in Yarmouth County, and Dr. Charles W. Townsend (1920a) saw a flock of 10 on July 18 and as many as 26 on July 25, 1920, near Barrington. Later information from R. W. Tufts (1922 and 1925) shows a decided increase up to 1922, when he estimated that there were 736 willets, old and young, between Digby and Queens Counties; but in 1923 and 1924 there seemed to be no further increase.

Spring.--The northward migration of willets, which breed north of the winter range, is along the Atlantic coast, starting in March. The first migrants reach Virginia during the first or second week in April, but do not appear in Massachusetts until May, the main flight passing between the middle and last of that month. The probability of an offshore migration route is suggested by the following interesting observation made by Dr. George B. Grinnell (1916) during the last days of May, 1907:

It was in the middle of the morning of a gray, but not foggy, day, when we were off the Grand Banks of Newfoundland, that I noticed a considerable gathering of birds resting on the water in the immediate path of the ship. As we approached them I thought they looked like shore birds, and as the vessel drew quite close to them those immediately near it rose on wing and flew off to right and left, and again alighted on the water among their fellows. In the way in which they left the path of the vessel they reminded me of similar flights of waterfowl seen in Alaska. When the birds took wing they were at once recognized as willets, and there must have been somewhere near a thousand of them, not all packed together in a dense clump on the water, but more or less scattered out, in groups of forty, fifty, or a hundred, yet all fairly near one another, and suggesting a single flock. They seemed to leave the water reluctantly and gave me the impression that they were weary.

Courtship.--Very little seems to have been recorded about the courtship of the willet, but John T. Nichols has sent me the following notes:

On the shore of Wakulla County, Fla., in late March willets were evidently about to nest, March 27 they were noticed chasing one another in air, and holding the wings over the back after alighting, the black and white pattern displayed. The following mating behavior was observed March 29 toward sunset. Out on a mud flat exposed by low water two birds were standing. One stood directly behind the other, waving its parti-colored wings over its back, and ended by mounting the back of the front bird and fluttering there. The performance was accompanied by a tern-like series of kuk-kuk-kuk-kuk-kuk calls.

Nesting.--The eastern willet is decidedly a coastwise bird and it is seldom seen far from the coastal marshes, beaches, and islands. Its favorite nesting places are on sandy islands overgrown with grass, tall and thick enough to conceal its nest, or on dry uplands where similar conditions may be found in close proximity to marshes or the shore. In Nova Scotia I was too late to find nests, but Mr. Lewis (1920) writes:

I have occasionally searched for the nests or the young of the willets, but without success until June 8, 1920, when I found a nest with four eggs of this species, in an open swale in an upland pasture, about a quarter of a mile from the nearest salt marsh or salt water, at Arcadia, Yarmouth County, Nova Scotia, on the western side of the Chetogue River. The nest was near the junction of the River Road with Argyle Street, and was about 150 yards from each of those much-traveled highways, which were in full view from the nest site. Several cattle occupied the pasture at the time when the nest was found. The swale in which the nest was placed was of considerable extent and was of the kind preferred as a breeding place by Wilson’s snipe; in fact, a pair of those birds were evidently nesting there. The willet’s nest was a slight hollow in the damp ground, lined with a few dead rushes. It was surrounded by growing rushes, cinnamon fern, low blackberry bushes, and wild rose bushes, and was well concealed.