158 Union Bay 



be astonished at the distances traveled by some small birds, 

 I was a bit overwhelmed to know that W. H. Hudson, the 

 English naturalist who had written of the La Plata River 

 region in the Argentine, had noted the annual southward 

 passage of the bird to Patagonia in October. He maintained 

 that many thousands of the birds wintered there. He had 

 observed them flying north in April and May. So far as I 

 could ascertain, the only breeding site is on the northwest 

 coast of Alaska. Even if many of the birds do not winter as 

 far south as Patagonia, the distances traveled by all of them 

 are tremendous and their schedule exceedingly close. There 

 have been many explanations of the causes which impel a 

 bird to winter nearly two continents away from its nesting 

 area but none that logically accounts for this trip. 



I continued to watch the bird until the eighth day when 

 I found it had disappeared. It had been a brief stop, but 

 when I calculated the distance it must travel before reaching 

 its winter grounds, I concluded that its stay was long enough 

 to be a real tribute to the marsh and its hospitality. As the 

 thrillers would say: "Here is a bird that ventures everything 

 for love. It annually makes a trip of from twelve to sixteen 

 thousand miles in return for three months of family life." 



While I had been busy watching this tan bird move about 

 on a similarly colored background, I nearly allowed another 

 important record to pass unnoticed. Such activity in this 

 small marsh hotel was without precedent. One real interview 

 at a time, with a considerable time between interviews, was 

 all that I had been trained to expect, but now I was in the 

 exciting position of a small town reporter who, while calling 

 on a general on a visit to friends in the locality, had received 

 a telegram announcing the arrival of the governor on the 

 afternoon train. Luckily I did not have to divide my time 

 between two sections of the marsh, for this new notable had 

 been an occupant of the same flat where I was watching the 

 buff-breasted sandpiper. I had casually noted this gull for 



