The Semipalmated Plover 



"IN CALIFORNIA the Semipalmated Plover is most common along 

 the shores of the ocean and larger bays. It seems to be equally at home 

 on sandy beaches and on the mud flats of estuaries. Unless too greatly 

 harassed the birds are exceedingly tame and will allow one to approach 

 very closely. They may be found singly, in pairs, in small groups of five 

 or ten, or in flocks of forty to fifty; the companies may either consist 

 entirely of their own kind, or include other small shore birds. When a 

 flock alights on the feeding ground, the individuals comprising it scatter 

 out at considerable distances from one another and thenceforth act with 

 perfect independence. Each runs for a short distance with such rapid 

 foot-movement and even carriage of the body that it seems to fairly 

 glide over the surface of the sand ; then it stops abruptly to dab slantingly 





Taken in Santa Barbara Countv Photo by the Author 



AT HOME ON A SANDY BEACH 



into the wet sand for morsels of food. Ground worked over in this 

 manner shows a multitude of bill-marks. The movements of the birds 

 are, as compared with those of sandpipers, more deliberate; now and then 

 an individual momentarily dips its foreparts, a mannerism shared among 

 several of the plovers. Ordinarily when the birds are scattered out over 

 a feeding ground they are oblivious to one another's presence; but, 

 should danger threaten, the signal of one sets all on guard. As they 

 take wing the members of a flock bunch quickly together and fly off 

 rapidly, in close formation, with numerous utterances of their clear 

 two-syllabled call-note. The Semipalmated Plover differs from the 

 Killdeer in being much quieter, more gregarious, and in showing a decided 

 preference for maritime forage grounds."' 



In strange contrast with the flock impulse referred to above, and 

 which so generally affects wading birds, is the madness of certain individ- 

 uals who become possessed of crank notions, and go tearing off into space 



1 Game Birds of Calif., Grinnell, Bryant & Storer, p. 471. 

 1312 



