PIPING PLOVER 237 



It is readily seen why persistent shooting threatened this bird's 

 existence. Its breeding range on the coast extends for hundreds of 

 miles in a northerly and southerly direction, but owing to the bird's 

 very restricted nesting site it is narrowed in many places to a strip 

 of beach only a few yards wide. Fortunately legislation intervened 

 and removed the smaller plovers from the list of game birds, so that 

 at the present time the piping plover is fast becoming one of our 

 common summer residents again. 



Spring. — Compared to most of the waders, the piping plover has 

 a short and safe migration route. Moving along the coast where 

 spring is further advanced than in the interior of the country, and 

 having to pass over no large bodies of water on its way to its breed- 

 ing ground, the bird pushes northward early in the season, often 

 arriving in New England during the last days of March, the first 

 of the shorebirds to reach our beaches. 



Courtship. — In his notes A. C. Bent describes the courtship thus : 

 " I saw and heard the nuptial flight and song of this bird. He flew 

 in large circles or figure 8s low over the back beach near the marsh 

 for several minutes, giving constantly a peculiar twittering whistling 

 song." Another entry in his notes under date. May 20, reads : " Saw 

 piping plover mating, two males following one female. They were 

 running around her in crouching attitude, with wings spread and 

 trailing and with tail spread in display, uttering whistling notes." 



I once saw a male bird come up behind a crouching female and 

 stand at full height close to her with his breast feathers puffed out 

 and head held high, his neck stretched upward so that it was long 

 and slim, the bird both in posture and shape resembling an upland 

 plover. For a minute or two he stood thus while his feet beat a 

 rapid tatoo on .the sand. In this attitude of display he appeared 

 bright colored and conspicuous in contrast to the female and the 

 band across his breast (complete in his case) stood out sharply de- 

 fined against the adjacent snowy feathers. 



Nesting. — The typical nesting site of the piping plovers is the belt 

 of sand bordering lake or ocean well above high-water mark, where 

 the surface is becoming diversified and pebble strewn and wisps 

 of beach grass begin to grow. Here they lay their eggs, commonly 

 with little preparation for their reception other than a slight hollow- 

 ing of the light sand, but not infrequently they collect small stones, 

 bits of shell, or driftwood and line their nests with them or lay them 

 near by. 



The following quotations indicate differences in the appearance of 

 the nests. In a letter to Mr. Bent, Allen H. Wood describes a very 

 unusual nest. He says : " The nest was a hollow scooped in a mass 

 of sand which had been piled up to a height of nearly 10 inches. 



