1893  
June 16    
Say brood Ferry, Conn.                                                                                    
  Cloudy with strong N.E. wind which brought rain in the
evening.
  After breakfast Faxon and I walked to the ploughed
land where we heard the Killdeer last evening. They were
not there and after reaching an old corn field grown
up to weeds & sorrel in which at least two pairs of
Spotted Sandpipers were evidently nesting we kept on over
hilly pastures until we came to a creek & marsh
where we lay down under the shelter of some bushes & smoked
our pipes awhile. The wind was blowing hard, ruffling
the foliage and covering the river white caps.
  We next crossed the marsh & creek on a line of stepping
stones and climbed a low, gravely hill with bayberry
thickets along the side. On reaching the top we looked off
over an extensive, nearly level plateau - a series of pastures
divided by stone walls & wire or rail fences. The soil
was so thin & poor that the growth of grass was at  the
best, short and scanty which in many places there was
nothing but moss on patches of gravel dotted with tufts
of beach grass. Grass Finches were rather numerous here
and Yellow - winged Sparrows simply swarmed.
  Scarcely had we showed ourselves above the edge of the
plateau when a Killdeer came sweeping towards us and
after a little it was joined by another, evidently its
mate. Both birds showed unmistakable anxiety circling
above us and following us wherever we went uttering
continuously thin shrill, rather harsh ke-e or ee-e
varied occasionally to ke-ke-ke-ke-ke. We could trace no
resemblance in the calls to the word "kllldeer". The birds often
alighted & bobbed their heads or took short swift runs. We spent
two hours or more looking for the nest but found nothing.
The weather was so gloomy in the afternoon that I did not go out.
Faxon crossed the river & took a walk through Lyme.
[margin]Killdeer Plover.[/margin]