THE SPOTTED SANDPIPER 



By HERBERT K. JOB 



TOe ilJational association of audubon Societies 



EDUCATIONAL LEAFLET NO. 51 



Somehow, though I can hardly explain why, the sight of a shore-bird has 

 always given me a peculiar thrill. In my boyhood I always associated them 

 with summer and fall outings on the seacoast, when I tramped for miles over 

 the vast stretches of the firm-packed sand by the booming surf on 'the back-side 

 of the Cape' (Cape Cod), or explored the great salt marshes, luxuriating in 

 briny odors, and hstening eagerly for the pipings of some approaching flock. 

 There was an added charm of mystery about these waifs that were even more 

 at home on the shores of the arctic sea than on beaches made common-place by 

 hotels and crowds. They seemed also to carry always, like a certain proverbial 

 lass, that 'delicate air' which put them in a class by themselves, so clean, so 

 trim, so graceful, always as though just out of a band-box, even when they 

 dabbled in muddy margins. Even though the Spotted Sandpiper appeared not 

 always in especially romantic surroundings, it was nevertheless a shore-bird, and 

 seemed to bring just a sweet little whiff of the sea-breeze and salt air. Even 

 when it appeared up in the potato field, it was a blessed shore-bird still, and it 

 called up mental impressions of the whole salubrious tribe. 



In many localities the shore-bird race would be unknown, vanished with 

 the lost arts and extinct races, were it not for our dear little 'Teeter," the Spotted 

 Sandpiper. This species is by all odds the commonest and most widely distrib- 

 uted shore-bird in North America today. In answer to the inquiry as to where 

 it is found, I would suggest the opposite question. Where is it not found^ This 

 is not to assert, in these days of decline of bird-life, that it is swarming in every 

 locality. Far from it, alas. But there is hardly a place, except in deep forest, 

 where one need be surprised to run across it. It breeds from the Gulf of Mexico 

 to the Arctic Ocean, and is found, either in nesting or in migration, from Atlan- 

 tic to Pacific, — from sea to sea (and from shore to shore), — and in about all 

 open spots between, ever though there be little water, wherever it can find its 

 insect food. 



Like most other shore-birds, it is a great traveler. One would 

 Range hardly suspect the little pair, settled down for the summer so tamely 



in the quiet farm pasture, of being restless, and of craving the excite- 

 ment of foreign travel. Yet, for aught we can tell, it may be the selfsame birds 

 that some explorer for one of our museums meets in winter away down in Peru, 

 Bolivia, or southern Brazil. They seem erratic, at times, in their movements 

 and desires. Though many of them remain in northern states well into October, 

 other individuals take time by the forelock, and by the end of July show them- 

 selves in the West Indies, Venezuela, or in Mexico. Some few remain for the 



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