SNOWY PLOVER 247 



some bleached piece of driftwood or half buried clam shell it seems 

 to be just one more of the numerous, inconspicuous objects which one 

 passes unnoticed on the beach. Its favorite haunts are the broad 

 expanses of flat, dry sand above the ordinary wash of the tides on 

 ocean beaches. Such places are usually strewn more or less thickly 

 with shells, pebbles, and various bits of debris, among which the 

 little plover, or its eggs and young, are surprisingly inconspicuous. 

 Here it was born and has always lived; here it woos its mate and 

 rears its little family; and hence it seldom strays except to feed 

 along the water's edge on the ocean beach or on the bare flats along 

 some near-by tidal creek. There are, however, a few places in the 

 interior where the snowy plover has been found along the shores of 

 salt or alkaline lakes. But it is mainly a bird of the ocean beaches. 



Spring. — The snowy plover wanders north in the spring as far as 

 the coast of Washington. D. E. Brown tells me that he saw it in 

 Grays Harbor County from April 7 to 13, 1918, and from May 14 

 to 16, 1914, in Pacific County. But apparently no one has ever found 

 it breeding there, although several good observers have looked for it. 



Nesting. — The nesting grounds of the snowy plover have been 

 briefly described above, but a better description is contained in the 

 following quotation from W. Lee Chambers (1904) : 



The nesting ground is a wliite sandy cape or narrow strip of land between 

 Ballona Swamp and tlie ocean about 2 miles long and 200 yards wide. This 

 place during the fall high tides is completely flooded and deposits of small 

 rocks and broken shells are left there. Among these the plovers place their 

 nests. On approaching it one may be attracted by noticing the little fellows 

 running about on the sand in front of him or occasionally flying in low, wide 

 circles uttering a pleading whistle so characteristic of this species. This 

 whistle I have learned is a danger signal that I am near their nests, and on 

 looking over the ground carefully I may be able to notice fine bird tracks in 

 the white sand or in the patches of white sand between the shells and rocks. 



In going over the ground carefully where the tracks are the thickest a nest 

 will generally be found. Sometimes the birds will build among the small rocks, 

 where the tracks can not be seen, and here the eggs are safe, as their coloration 

 protects them, for they look exactly like small rocks. The nests are, as a rule, 

 found by a mark of some kind, a bone of some animal, a small dead weed, or a 

 bit of driftwood, and are slight depressions in the sand. Some are completely 

 lined with broken shells or fish bones with the eggs pointed toward the center, 

 very close together and about half buried in the nest lining. A pair of birds 

 will build several nests during the season and use only one, for I have found 

 nests all fixed up and completely surrounded with tracks. This I noticed 

 especially in 1901, for I found about three times as many unused nests as used 

 ones. During this season I visited Ballona about three times a week and gave 

 the birds careful study. 



"While J. Eugene Law was helping me to get acquainted with the 



birds of southern California, we spent a delightful day. May 29, 1914, 



among these birds with Mr, Chambers at Del Rey, Los Angeles 



County. This was once a typical nesting place of this species, a broad 



2316—29 17 



