Birds of The Palisades Interstate Parle 
91 
no cries of the Buteos were heard by me in the Park during the 
season, except the peculiar whistle of the Broad-winged Hawk. 
(See p. 89.) 
56. Buffed Grouse. Bonasa urnbdlus umbellus (Linn.) 
The Buffed Grouse was apparently more common in the Guest 
House neighborhood than at Bear Mountain. On June 15 I ran 
across a female grouse with several flying chicks in the edge of the 
woods near the garage of the Guest House. When disturbed the 
mother bird began a whining noise similar to a puppy’s, and ran 
ahead through the low shrubs, seeking to mislead me until her 
chicks had sought safety in short flights into the scrub. My obser- 
vations during the season indicated that the grouse is only sparsely 
represented in the Park. 
57'. Spotted Sandpiper. Actitis macularia (Linn.) 
The Spotted Sandpiper occurs regularly throughout the Guest 
House neighborhood, frequenting suitable places on the lake shores. 
On July 20 I found a nest of a Spotted Sandpiper in the cleared 
margin of the extension to Carr Pond (Fig. 32). It was among 
low sprouts and stubs of shrubs, about three feet from the track 
of an old road and about twenty feet from the water’s edge. The 
road was used daily by numbers of boys, and the sitting female 
was forced to leave her nest many times during the day at the 
approach of persons Walking along the old path. The site was 
between sprout clumps, with surrounding grasses and low weeds, 
the nest being thus in open view to searching observation. It was 
made of coarse fragments of grass and weed stems, in a depression 
so that the brim of the nest was flush with the general ievel. There 
were four eggs in the nest, remarkably large for the size of the 
parent bird, so placed that their small ends pointed together in 
the middle of the depression. On July 27 I noted that the female 
sandpiper was caring for four little ones on the water margin near 
the site of the deserted nest. The young instinctively leave the nest 
soon after they are hatched, and thereafter are cared for by the 
mother outside. 
