Yol 'i™ V ] Dixon, The Spoon-billed Sandpiper. 397 



The nuptial flight consists of momentary poises alternating with 

 rapid dips (Fig. 3). When the bird hovers or poises, the rapid 

 beating of the wings is accompanied by a fine, rhythmical, pulsating, 

 buzzing trill: zee-e-e, zee-e-e, zee-e-e, rapidly repeated (Fig. 3a). 

 Following this the bird approaches the intruder, swinging down in a 

 sharp curve until ten feet lower than the previous hovering point 

 (Fig. 3b) where he again poises on rapidly beating wings, pouring 

 forth anew his insistent, musical trill. After repeating this per- 

 formance four or five times, the songster sweeps down in a long 

 graceful curve (Fig. 3c) until he almost touches the earth near 

 his brooding mate, then curving off, he turns and rises rapidly 

 and almost perpendicularly until almost out of sight. From this 

 new point of vantage the whole performance is repeated. After 

 four or five such excursions, in each of which the intruder is 

 approached from a different direction, the guardian of the nest 

 descends by raising his wings nearly vertically until they form 

 in anterior outline the letter V. The bird thus gliding on 

 motionless wings drops lightly but quickly to earth, uttering 

 the zee-e-e in a richer yet more subdued tone (Fig. 3d). As 

 soon as he touches the earth the song ceases and the silent bird 

 trots quietly off over the moss, where his trim form blends with 

 the lichen and mossy tussocks so that, upon remaining motionless 

 he disappears with amazing rapidity. Time and again we thus 

 lost sight of the birds, which we later discovered by the aid of 

 binoculars, to be standing or squatting motionless within fifty feet 

 of us. Although this "fading out" method of exit is commonly 

 employed by many shore birds, in the case of the Spoon-billed 

 Sandpiper it seems to have been developed to an extreme degree. 



The two nests of this bird that came under the author's observa- 

 tion were discovered through flushing the brooding male. The 

 birds were very shy and as there was no cover other than a thin 

 growth of grass about six inches high, approach by stealth was 

 difficult (see Plate V, Fig. 2). The birds usually sneaked off while 

 the observer was forty or fifty yards distant, and in order to find the 

 nest it was necessary, to hide, as best one could, near the place where 

 the sandpiper had flushed, until it returned again to the nest. In 

 one instance a depression partly filled with water was the only 

 .available hiding place. Fortunately for the watcher the water 



