502 SANDPIPERS AND RELATED SPECIES 



A fair number of the green remain with us throughout the winter, 

 and it has been occasionally recorded in the summer months. 

 Normally it is absent for less than two months, as the spring migration 

 continues into June and the return commences in the middle of July. 

 The wood-sandpiper a far rarer bird is met with only on passage, 

 and chiefly in autumn. It has, however, been known to nest in this 

 country on at least one occasion, as the late John Hancock took a 

 nest of eggs and shot the male bird on June 3, 1853, on Prestwick 

 Car, Northumberland. 1 The undoubted authenticity of this record 

 adds weight to one or two others which are based on less certain 

 grounds. 



Both species are far more partial to inland, and salt-marshes, 

 dyke and river sides than to the coast ; in fact, they are seldom found 

 on the open shore. They are probably the earliest of all our Waders 

 in their return from their breeding quarters, the middle of July being 

 the usual time for their first appearance. Migration continues to 

 the middle or end of September ; after that time, with the exception 

 of the comparatively small number of the green that pass the winter 

 with us, they are seldom seen. The part of our islands most favoured 

 is the eastern half of England, but the green occurs not uncommonly 

 on the east of Scotland, also in the Solway district, in Wales, and in 

 Ireland. The wood-sandpiper is more limited to the eastern counties, 

 where, although regular in its occurrence on the autumn passage, it is 

 not ^numerous. It is very rare in Scotland, and also in the west of 

 England. Dr. Ticehurst describes it as regular in autumn in the 

 South Kent marshes, but generally in small numbers. As a rule not 

 more than three or four are seen together; formerly it appears to 

 have been more plentiful, as old records exist referring to large flocks. 

 On July 26, 1867, a flock of eighty to one hundred birds was seen. 

 In the spring it is only a straggler, Dr. Ticehurst knowing of only 

 three records. 2 No doubt the chief spring migration route of the 



1 Hancock, Catalogue of the Birds of Northumberland and Durham, p. 121. 



2 Ticehurst, Birds of Kent, pp. 474-5. 



