BIRDS OF ESSEX COUNTY. 



39 



during June, when the demands of the young are so great that the parents are 

 obliged to fish by day as well as by night. These handsome birds with their 

 long plumes, which are worn by adults of both sexes, can then be seen in broad 

 daylight, often in considerable numbers, on the sand- and mudflats and bars of 

 the numerous creeks. Later in the season, the young and old flock to the 

 marshes by night, and their squawk becomes a familiar sound to the dwellers 

 in these regions. 



Of the shore birds there are some whose occurrence in the salt marsh is 

 accidental. Thus the Wilson's Snipe delights in fresh-water marshes, but may 

 very rarely be found on the salt marsh. The Sanderling and the Knot are 

 typical beach birds, but on occasions they stray into the marsh, and even the 

 Purple Sandpiper, a bird of rocky islands, has been found on the marshes of 

 Cape Cod, although this must have been purely accidental. The Phalaropes, 

 in the same way, have also been found in marshes. Sandflats and sloughs in 

 marshes near the sea sometimes attract such beach birds as Black-bellied Plover, 

 Turnstones, Piping and Semipalmated Plover. The Golden Plover, which 

 prefers the upper beach and the fields, may also wander into the marshes. 

 The Semipalmated Sandpiper is not infrequently seen here with his marsh-loving 

 friend, the Least Sandpiper, and on those occasions he looks very sandy and out 

 of place. The Upland Plover, although typically a bird of the fields and hills, 

 will not infrequently drop into the upper parts of the salt marshes, as there are 

 many gi-asshoppers in this region, and his uplifted wings, as he alights, are very 

 conspicuous in the black-grass. The characteristic shore birds of the salt marsh 

 are, however, the Least Sandpiper or "Mud-peep," to be found on nearly every 

 mudflat during the migrations, the Spotted Sandpiper that flies before the 

 intruder in half circles along the banks of the muddy creeks uttering his famil- 

 iar cry, the Yellow-legs, Greater and Lesser, whose alarm notes ring out over 

 the marsh, startling each dreaming bird and gunner to attention, the Grass-bird 

 or Pectoral Sandpiper, and the Dowitcher. The Red-backed and Bonaparte's 

 Sandpipers and the Stilt Sandpiper, the Hudsonian Godwit, Hudsonian Curlew, 

 and Willet, although all frequenters of the beach, appear to be equally at home in 

 the mud-sloughs of the marsh. The Solitary Sandpiper, however, much prefers 

 fresh-water mudholes, or those that are nearly fresh, to the true salt marsh. 



The number of land birds that frequent the salt marsh is comparatively 

 limited. Of the birds of prey, the Marsh Hawk is most often seen there, 

 although it prefers fresh-water marshes and uplands, and the Short-eared Owl 

 sometimes strays from the sand dunes to the marsh. The American Crow may 

 perhaps be put at the head of the list of marsh-frequenting land birds, as it finds 

 much food in the marshes, and large numbers of these interesting birds are 

 attracted from the inland country, particularly in the winter season, when frost 



