200 MICHIGAN BIRD LIFE 
110. Spotted Sandpiper. Actitis macularia (Linn.). (263) 
Synonyms: Sandpeep, Sand-snipe, River-snipe, Tip-up, Teeterer, Teeter-tail, Peet- 
weet, Peep.—Tringa macularia, Linn., 1766.—Totanus macularius, Temm., 1815.— 
Tringoides macularius, Gray, 1849, and many others.—Actitis macularia, Naum., 1836, 
A. O. U. Check-list, 1895, and most recent authors. 
Plate XI. 
The adult is recognizable as the only sandpiper whose under parts are 
thickly marked with clean cut round spots or “polka-dots” of dark brown 
or black on a nearly white ground color. In addition, the living bird is 
always bobbing and balancing as it sit or runs, and when in flight always 
shows conspicuous white bars on the wings. 
Distribution.—North and South America, from Alaska south to southern 
Brazil. Breeds throughout temperate North America, less commonly 
on the Pacific coast. Occasional in Europe. 
This is the common Sandpiper or Tip-up of streams and ponds during 
the summer, and is almost universally distributed, from the southern 
border to Lake Superior. It never occurs in flocks, always singly, in pairs, 
or at most in little family parties of five or six, the young then distinguish- 
able by the unspotted breast. It is a late comer in spring, seldom arriving 
before the first of May, sometimes not until the middle of the month; 
and rarely remains after the middle of September. It is oftenest seen 
along the edges of small ponds and streams, but occurs also along the 
sandy beaches of the Great Lakes, and about the little mud-holes and 
ditches in upland pastures far from any large body of water. 
It nests almost anywhere on the ground; not always near the water, 
but in pasture, wheatfield, sand-bank, or in the wrack along the shore. 
The nest is often well built, but at other times is hardly more than a hollow 
scraped in the ground, with a few grass stems between the eggs and the 
soil. Eggs are rarely found, even in’the southern counties, before the 
third week in May, and the larger number appear to be laid between the 
first and fifteenth of June. Mr. E. A. Doolittle records three nests of four 
eggs each, found June 28, July 2, and July 5, 1906, on Grand Island, Lake 
Superior. He considered these to be second sets, but if so it would not 
indicate second broods but only that the first set of eggs had been lost by 
accident and the birds had made a second trial. Possibly no part of the life 
history of our common birds has been so much neglected as this question 
of second broods, and careful studies in this direction would well repay 
the investigator. The eggs are almost invariably four in number, seldom 
three or five, and are buffy or soiled white, spotted and speckled with 
brown and black. They average 1.25 by .90 inches. 
The characteristic note of the bird is usually written “peet-weet” and 
when the bird is alarmed or is calling anxiously to its mate or young it 
sounds like p’weet’-p’weet’-p’weet’. When followed along the shore 
the bird flies ahead 30 to 50 yards at a time, and almost always prefers 
to fly out over the water rather than over the sand. After being followed 
some little distance it is likely to turn back, making a larger loop than 
usual, and return to that part of the shore from which it was first driven. 
It often alights on stumps, fence-posts and rails, as well as on boulders 
and small rocks; and wherever it may be it keeps up the constant balancing, 
teetering motion, which is by no means confined to this species, yet is carried 
to such an extreme as to have given the bird several of its vernacular names. 
