PROCEEDINGS 



STATEN ISLAND ASSOCIATION 



OF 



ARTS AND SCIENCES 



Vol. Ill Januarv-May, 1910 Part II 



Two Seasons' Photographic Work with Sandpipers at 

 Wolfe's Pond^ 



Howard H. Cleaves 



Xeedless to say, the spotted sandpipers are the only ones that 

 remahi to nest on Staten Island. During June, 1908, one of their 

 nests was found at Prince's Bay. The site selected by the birds 

 was near the edge of a tidewater creek which runs in a winding 

 manner through a salt meadow. It was here that my first sand- 

 piper photographs were taken. 



The year before the finding of this nest, the meadows had been 

 ditched by the Health Department in its campaign against mos- 

 quitoes. The effect on the meadows was marked. Barren spots 

 appeared where water had stood before, and scattered over these 

 places were innumerable blocks of peatlike turf, which had been 

 thrown aside by the ditch diggers. Mother sandpiper, after being 

 flushed from the nest, would sometimes fly to another part of the 

 meadow. Soon, however, she could be seen cautiously threading 

 her way back, and not infrequently she would, for the purpose of 

 observation, run to the top of one of the above mentioned pieces 

 of earth. The camera was now brought into play. All of the 



* Presented February 19, 1910. 



55 



