Sandpit

“ Any pond, lake or stream will be visited sooner or later by these little sandpipers. You find them teetering along shores, picking up insects and small crustacea which form the diet. Mud banks, sandy shores, pebbly mountain streams, half-sunken logs, all furnish happy hunting grounds.
The teetering tail is distinctive and no other sandpiper has the round black spots on his breast and none has the fluttering flight. They seem to tip-toe thru the air with very short wingbeats. Young and adults in winter plumage do not show the spots but continue to teeter. ”

“ While with us the white-rumped sandpiper frequents the wet meadows and marshes near the shore, as well as the sand flats, mud flats, and beaches, feeding at low tide singly or in small flocks and usually associated with pectoral, semipalmated, or least sandpipers. During high tides, while the flats are covered, this species may be seen on the high sandy beaches, mixed in with the vast flocks of small shorebirds, sleeping, or resting, or preening their plumage, while waiting for feeding time to come again; if the wind is blowing, all the birds are facing it ”

“ Behavior.—The flight of the purple sandpiper suggests at times that of the spotted sandpiper, for when disturbed singly along the shore it is apt to fly out over the water with rapid downward wing strokes and, describing a large semicircle, return to the shore some distance ahead. When flying in a flock the birds are often closely bunched, the whole flock wheeling and turning in unison, showing alternately their dark bodies and their white bellies, in true sandpiper fashion. As a rule they do not make very long flights or fly very high. ”

“ In flight, semipalmated sandpipers in flocks, large and small, often move as one bird, twisting and turning with military precision, alternately displaying their light breasts and darker backs—flashing white and then almost disappearing. The method which enables shore birds, or, indeed, any flocking bird, to accomplish these evolutions is obscure. In the case of the semipalmated sandpiper these [Pg 250] evolutions appear often to be made in silence, although it is of course possible that signals, not audible to the human observer, may be given. ”

“ The true birds of the marsh, those that feed and nest in the grass, have the spirit of the great marsh-mother. The sandpiper is not her bird. It belongs to the shore, living almost exclusively along sandy, pebbly margins, the margins of any, of almost every water, from Delaware Bay to the tiny bubbling spring in some Minnesota pasture. Neither is the killdeer her bird. The upland claims it, plover though it be. A barren, stony hillside, or even a last year's corn-field left fallow, is a better-loved breast to the killdeer than the soft brooding breast of the marsh. ”

“ These little Sandpipers are abundant during the migrations either in marshes or on beaches. They are most often found in company with other species, such as the Spotted and Least Sandpipers. Their appearance is very similar to that of the Least Sandpipers, but they are slightly larger and the feet are partially webbed. Their eggs have a greenish buff or grayish ground color and are spotted with brownish or blackish, sometimes, so heavily as to completely obscure the shell color. ”

“ Its food consists of crustaceans, sand-worms, molluscs, and insects; and, during summer, of seeds as well. Although most of this food is obtained whilst the tide is driving in, the bird may be seen in quest of it at the ebb. It frequently retires inland a little way, or rests upon a rocky islet or point, between the ebb and the flow of the tide. Its flight is rapid and straightforward, and often accompanied by its shrill and quickly uttered tee-wit. The Purple Sandpiper, though social, is never seen on our coasts in very large flocks, and, perhaps, most frequently in pairs or alone. ”

“ As the least is more frequently found on tidal flats in the estuaries and in salt marshes, it is sometimes called the "mud peep," while the semipalmated, which especially delights in the sand beaches is called the "sand peep." Unfortunately this rule, although of general value, is far from absolute, and the birds often exchange places. The least sandpiper is more often found on the beach in the spring than in the fall. ”

“ The well-known and well-named Solitary Sandpiper arrives later than the other birds of its family in La Plata, and differs greatly from them in its habits, avoiding the wet plains and muddy margins of lagoons and marshes where they mostly congregate, and making its home at the side of a small pool well sheltered by its banks, or by trees and herbage, and with a clear margin on which it can run freely. As long as there is any water in its chosen pool, though it may be only a small puddle at the bottom of a ditch, the bird will remain by it in solitary contentment. ”

“ With them were one or two purple sandpipers, stout little waders who find the companionship of rock hunters more to their taste than the birds which haunt the sandy shore; there are usually some of these two species on the weed-fringed rocks of Hilbre. The curlew sandpiper, a bird with a long, slightly curved bill and conspicuous white upper tail-coverts, was not present, nor was that diminutive dunlin, the little stint; the majority of these two species had no doubt passed in August or September. A few often appear amongst the Dee little birds, but they are never really common. ”

“ Upon the dark muds and the wet shining brown sands it is much more conspicuous; and there are few prettier sights along the shore than a scattered flock of Sanderlings, standing head towards the observer, looking like so many white balls of animated snow. It searches for its food by running to and fro about the beach, often on the very margin of the spent waves, sometimes wading through the shallows, or quickly dodging the foam-flecked in-driving surf. Its food consists of sand-worms, crustaceans, various insects and great quantities of small molluscs. ”

“ The blue immensity of the lake glistens, and is flecked with foam. White plumes are tossing and waving along the sky-line. In the foreground little groups of sandpipers are running nimbly along the edges of the incoming waves, racing after them as they retreat, and lightly taking wing when they come too near. There are flocks of stately gulls, balancing themselves with set wings, high in the wind, and a few terns are skimming along the crests. The gray figures of two or three herons are stalking about, with much dignity, near some driftwood that dots the dry sand farther up the shore. ”

“ Sandpipers don't bore in the ground for their food, but just pick it up; so they keep along the shore of either fresh or salt water, some kinds choosing one place and some another. The Spotted Sandpiper is another of the little fellows who sometimes nests back in those meadows. ”

“ The white-rumped, or Bonaparte, sandpiper is a great traveller; it breeds in a limited area on the Arctic coast of North America and winters in extreme southern South America.
Spring.—From its winter home in South America, this sandpiper makes an early start; Dr. Alexander Wetmore (1926) writes:
At Guamini, Buenos Aires, from March 3 to 8, white-rumped sandpipers were encountered in northward migration from a winter range in Patagonia. ”

“ The common sandpiper, known also as the summer snipe, is a summer visitor, to be met with from April until the end of September in suitable places throughout the British Islands. He is an exceeding lively and restless little bird, running nimbly or flitting along the margin of the water; when standing, perpetually bobbing his head and jerking his tail, on which account he is named ‘fidler’ in some districts; solitary in habit, or living with his mate only, choosing for a home the most secluded spots by streams and meres. ”

“ They looked and they looked, and though they found their seaside spades, nowhere could they find the Sand-fairy.
At last they had to sit down and rest - not at all because they were weary or disheartened, of course, but because the Lamb insisted on being put down, and you cannot look very carefully after anything you may have happened to lose in the sand if you have an active baby to look after at the same time. Get someone to drop your best knife in the sand next time you go to the seaside, and then take your baby brother with you when you go to look for it, and you will see that I am right. ”

“ The four handsome pear-shaped eggs—pale buff, splashed and spotted with rich brown and gray—in their scanty nest, usually made beneath the shelter of a heath tuft or bunch of grass, require no special protection from the parent, for they harmonize so closely in tint with surrounding objects that discovery is difficult in the extreme, even when we know the exact location of their resting-place. Curiously enough the Sandpiper is not aquatic in its habits. It never swims nor dives save when wounded, but obtains its food whilst tripping round the muddy and sandy portions of the water’s edge. ”

“ The bill of a long-billed semipalmated sandpiper is quite straight and becomes slender toward the end; that of a short-billed western is not so slender toward the end and with just an appreciable downward bend before its tip. In long-billed individuals of the western sandpiper the bill becomes slender toward the end and frequently has a decided drop at the tip. Such birds are unmistakably different to anyone thoroughly familiar with the semipalmated sandpiper. ”

“ The Common Sandpipers are abundantly met with on all the streams, lakes, and sea-coasts of the northern portions of both hemispheres, and both live and breed in the temperate latitudes, remaining in the latter from one year to another, while such as occupy the colder regions wander as far as Southern Europe and Northern Africa. Great Britain and Ireland are regularly visited during the summer by these birds, but they do not, we believe, resort to the Orkney or Shetland Isles. ”

“ The return migration begins in April, and lasts over May into June. There can be little doubt that the Sanderling migrates by night. Few birds are more trustful and engaging than this pretty little Arctic stranger. It not only frequents the long reaches of sand, but mud-flats, estuaries, and the creeks and streams in salt-marshes; its favourite haunts, however, are the sands. During its sojourn on our coast it consorts in flocks of varying size; 106 and very frequently a small party attach themselves to a larger gathering of Dunlins, or Ringed Plovers. ”

“ SANDWICH Approaching Sandwich, whose towers and roof-tops rise picturesquely ahead from the level marshes, mingled with the masts and spars of a few vessels lying at the town quays, a belt of spindly trees is passed, stretching away to the left. They are trees of a considerable height and size, but they wear an ill-nourished appearance, as they cannot fail to do when we consider how poor the soil on which they grow. It is, in fact, nothing but sand and pebbles. One solitary residence, Stonar House, stands amid these weird woods. ”

“ Before I leave this spot I had perhaps better remark that it might prove a very difficult, perhaps dangerous, place to any other traveller to attempt to find, because although there are many white sandhills in the neighbourhood, the open space on which the water lies is so small in area and so closely surrounded by scrubs, that it cannot be seen from any conspicuous one, nor can any conspicuous sandhill, distinguishable at any distance, be seen from it. ”

“ It is the most common wader of the north, the fjaerplyt of the walrus-hunters, the purple sandpiper (Tringa maritima, Brünn.) . It lives on flies, gnats, and other land insects. Its well-filled crop shows how well the bird knows how to collect its food even in regions where the entomologist can only with difficulty get hold of a few of the animal forms belonging to his field of research. The purple sandpiper lays its four or five eggs in a pretty little nest of dry straw on open grassy or mossy plains a little distance from the sea. ”

“ Sandpipers do not congregate like many others of the Waders; they come to us generally in pairs, and do not appear to flock together even when preparing to migrate. The nest is a slight depression in the ground, most frequently well concealed by rushes or other tufted foliage, and is constructed of a few dry leaves, stalks of grass, and scraps of moss. The Sandpiper lays four eggs, which are large, and quite disproportionate to the size of the bird. ”

“ The moon shines on his silver hair, On his quick feet. The Sandman comes searching across the Bay: He goes to all the houses he knows To put sand in little girls' eyes. That is why I go to my sleepy bed, And why the lake-gull leaves the moon alone. There are no wings to moonlight any more, Only the Sandman's hair. ”

“ While with us they frequent the mud flats and edges of muddy ponds or bays in the marshes; they are seldom seen on the sandy beaches or far out on the sand flats. They associate freely with the smaller sandpipers, least, and semipalmated, or with the semipalmated plover and turnstones. Often in the great flocks of these small sandpipers a number of dowitchers may be easily recognized by their much larger size and very dark appearance, also by their much longer bills. ”