74 BEACH GRASS 



is largely by flutterings, a combined action of 

 wings and feet, although they occasionally walk 

 a few inches without the help of their wings. 

 The feet are held well apart as they shuffle along. 

 As the flocks are made up chiefly of tree swallows, 

 the droppings on the sand generally contain a 

 few bayberry seeds. The swallows often take 

 sun baths, opening and shutting their wings in 

 the early morning on the side of the dune, just 

 as do barn swallows on the sunny side of a 

 roof. 



Although tracks of shore birds and gulls are 

 more common on the beach, flocks often settle in 

 the dunes and spread their tracks over the sand. 

 One may find in a short compass the tracks of 

 ring-necked plover and herring gull, of skunk and 

 fox, of crow and toad. 



Savannah sparrow tracks are common at all 

 seasons but winter, while those of its cousin, the 

 Ipswich sparrow are most common in spring and 

 fall, and rare in winter. One would need to be 

 a keen diagnostician to distinguish between the 

 tracks of these two birds, but the Ipswich sparrow 

 is slightly larger and is more of a walker than the 



