° 1920 J Farley, Sandpipers at Plymouth, Mass. 80 



The week of February 18 was much milder than the week of 

 February 11. There was a hard rain on the night of the 23d. 

 Went to the beach on the 25th. The Inner Harbor was still frozen 

 over for the most part, though there was a good deal of open water 

 toward the mouth. " The tide was coming in and the outer beach 

 was getting well covered. Up on the dry, pebbly crown of the 

 beach, found two Sanderlings. I got quite close to them. They 

 stood motionless in the sunlight, and their whole aspect seemed 

 almost to indicate that, having been deprived for a time of their 

 feeding ground by the tide, they were calmly (and quite at their 

 ease) waiting for the water to fall again and give them another 

 chance to go to feeding. By way of contrast: the cold wave and 

 consequent tight condition of things has seemed to affect these little 

 Sandpipers less than the Black Ducks which, having lost their 

 feeding grounds by the freezing of the Inner Harbor, have become 

 very lean and weak and are being fed by people. Two hours 

 later on my way back up the beach I passed these two Sanderlings 

 at the same spot on the beach ridge — still motionless and tame. 

 I went very close to them and they watched me sharply but did 

 not fly." 



I did not see the Red-backed Sandpiper on February 25 and never 

 saw him again. 



The week of February 25 was rather mild, but on Sunday, 

 March 4, it began snowing in the morning and continued steadily 

 all day and heavily by dark (the wind now being northeast,) and 

 lasted through the night and practically all of the 5th, with a strong 

 gale which made a big surf and drifts that stopped the street cars. 

 But the temperature was not low. Under the hill where Eel River 

 flows into the Inner Harbor the Black Ducks were massed — liter- 

 ally packed — on the snowy surface of the field. This storm 

 caused unusual, snowy conditions in Plymouth and on the Upper 

 Cape. Higher drifts are rarely seen in Barnstable and Sandwich. 

 It did not, however, "clear off cold." On March 10, Mr. T. W. 

 Graves was on the beach in the afternoon at low water. He saw 

 three beach birds — one Sanderling and two duller individuals 

 (Red-backs?). 



On March 11,1 was on the beach at high tide. It was completely, 

 iced up and there were the beginnings of an ice wall. Saw no beach 

 birds. The snowy conditions following the storm of March 4 and 



