Lake Umbagog, Maine
1894
Sept.12
(No 2)
this occasion, only a solitary Least Sandpiper. I then ran
the canoe ashore and took down the sail. While I was
there engaged the canoe drifted back a few yards when
on looking up I was greatly surprised to see within
fifteen or twenty feet, and on the very ground which
I had just scrutinized so closely, a flock of eight
Sandpipers among which I at once recognized two Pectorals
and four Ereunetes. The remaining two birds had an
unfamiliar look but I quickly became convinced that
they were Baird's Sandpipers as turned out to be the
case. I watched the flock for at least ten minutes
before disturbing them. At first they all stood
perfectly motionless, regarding me with timid suspicion,
apparently, but presently they scattered about and began
feeding. The Ereunetes ran nimbly from place to place
showing themselves freely along the water's edge. The
Pectorals acted very differently, moving at a slow
walk and keeping back among the hillocks, following the
depressions of the ground and crouching so low as often
to be hidden from my sight but occasionally showing their
heads & necks as they stood erect to look at me.
The movements and attitudes of the Baird's Sandpipers
were in many respects about intermediate between those
of the two species just named but, on the whole,
nearest, I thought, to those of Ereunetes.
[margin]Baird's 
Sandpipers[/margin]
  At length getting a favorable opportunity I fired
filling the two Pectorals one of the Baird's & an Ereunetes
with my first barrel and dropping the other Baird's
& one more Erenuetes with the second barrel as the
survivors started off over the river. The remaining two
birds, both Ereunetes, flew off down the Lake.