RED-BACKED SANDPIPER 227 



Several observers have remarked on the remarkable tameness of 

 the red-backed sandpiper. William Brewster (1925) spent two 

 hours photographing five of these birds within 8 feet of his boat 

 on an open mud flat ; they paid no attention to his movements, the 

 click of the camera, or the flapping of the focusing cloth ; " during 

 much of the time they were apparently asleep;" he even had diffi- 

 culty in frightening them away until he splashed water on them. I 

 have frequently walked up to within a few feet of feeding birds and 

 had some difficulty in inducing them to fly more than a short 

 distance. 



Their eyesight is keen enough, however, as shown by an incident 

 related by W. E. Saunders (1896). A bird which had been feed- 

 ing near him for about an hour, stopped, looked steadily, as if 

 afraid, and "shrank down flat on the ground, where he lay per- 

 fectly still." After some time Mr. Saunders discovered an eagle 

 approaching, so far away that he could hardly see him. After the 

 eagle had passed the sandpiper resumed his feeding. 



Voice. — The red-backed sandpiper is usually silent when on the 

 ground. John T. Nichols, in his notes, calls the " flushing note of a 

 single bird a fine chit-l-it. Its flight note is an emphatic near- 

 whistled chu or chru, resembling some of the calls of the pectoral 

 and semipalmated sandpipers, but quite diagnostic when one is suffi- 

 ciently familiar with it. This call may also be phonetically sug- 

 gested by the syllable pur re, which is a colloquial name of the 

 European dunlin, of which it is a race." 



Doctor Townsend (1905) says: "The note is plaintive and some- 

 times melodious, and recalls, without its harshness, the cry of the 

 common tern." Mr. Murdoch (1885) and others have noticed that 

 the rolling call, heard on the breeding grounds in June, '"reminds 

 one of the notes of the frogs in New England in spring." A bird 

 which Mr. Brewster (1925) flushed "uttered a peculiarly mellow 

 tweet-twel-l-l-ut just as it rose on wing." 



Field marks. — In spring plumage the American dunlin deservi s 

 the name red backed, for its back is even redder than that of its 

 European relative; at that season the black patch on the belly is 

 very conspicuous, even at a long distance, so that the species is 

 easily recognized. It is a short-legged, rather stocky bird, about 

 the size of the sanderling, and can be identified in the fall by its 

 rather long and somewhat curved bill and its dull, mouse-colored 

 back. A narrow white stripe in the wing can be seen in flight. 



Fall. — Of their departure from Alaska, Doctor Nelson (1887) 

 writes : 



The young are mostly on the wing toward the end of July, and the hirds 

 begin to gather into flocks along the muddy edges of the brackish pools and 

 the banks of tide creeks. Very soon after this they begin to lose their sum- 

 mer plumage, and the molt continues until the last of September or first of 



