Concord, Mass.
1910
May 15
(No 2)
[May 15, 1910]

Spotted Sandpipers
Showing off

  Yesterday afternoon and to-day at the same hour I saw a
pair of Spotted Sandpipers feeding along the margin of the little
pond dug last year in front of the horse shed at Ball's Hill.
They were very tame allowing me to approach within 20 yards.
As they "teetered" along the margin of the water this motion obviously
tended to conceal rather than to reveal them. I saw them pull
out several long worms (earthworms, apparently) from the mud
and swallow them. One bird looked a third larger than the
other. This one I took to be the male. He "showed off"
every now and then by spreading his tail, half opening his wings
and inflating the body plumage so that he looked even larger
than before. Both birds kept up a low conversational whistling
in exquisite, sweet and subdued tones using the ordinary spring
call, subdued as to volume.