208 
Two Sandpipers 
gather, and in a rather compact flock are off at a rapid rate, their little 
wings moving so rapidly that it takes a high speed of the focal-plane 
shutter to get them sharp on the plate. Circling about, they often return 
to alight near their starting-point. 
Speaking of photography, the shore-birds are a hard class to catch 
successfully with the camera, because so small, restless, and dwellers in 
wide expanses. Not many hunters with the camera can produce good 
photographs, self-taken, of this tribe. It can be done, however, and 
these little Sandpipers make very pretty subjects. One can attract them 
to a blind with decoys. I have even had them fly close to Duck decoys, 
and secured good pictures of them thus, though it probably was mere 
idle curiosity that drew them. The best chances I ever found to photo- 
graph these and other shore-birds, except at nesting time, was on the 
spring migration among the Florida Keys, where the red mangrove grows 
right down to the water’s edge, close to the sand-bars. 
o ograp mg winter and spring they are numerous in such 
Shore-birds , ihtIi i i 
places, and all 1 had to do was to squat quietly and 
blaze away with my harmless weapon as the unsuspecting birds ran by 
me, fed, or rested. 
These little nymphs are gleaners, rather than scavengers. Their 
food, of course, is of very small prey — larvae, worms, minute shell-fish, 
insects, and the like — which they pick up on shore or flat, or probe for 
deeper down. Though we may not be able to assign any definite 
economic value to these species in dollars and cents, they have a value 
none the less real and great. Celia Thaxter found genuine happiness 
with ‘‘One little Sandpiper and I !” — and so has many another. They 
have afforded me, hundreds of times, most exquisite delight, and I know 
that they are worth while. May their numbers greatly increase ! 
Classification and Distribution 
These Sandpipers belong to the Order Limicolce and Family Scolopacidcc. 
The scientific name of the Least Sandpiper is Pisobia minutilla. It breeds 
in northern and eastern Canada, and in Alaska, and winters from the southwestern 
border of the United States to Brazil and Chile. 
The scientific name of the Semipalmated Sandpiper is Ereunetes pusillus. 
It breeds in the Arctic regions, and winters from Texas and South Carolina 
throughout Central and South America. 
This and other Educational Leaflets are for sale, at 5 cents each, by the National Association of 
Audubon Societies, 1974 Broadway, New York City. Lists given on request. 
