SNIPES, SANDPIPERS: WHITE-RUMPED SANDPIPER 273 
WHITE-RUMPED SANDPIPER: Pisobia fuscicoUis (Vieillot) 
Description. — Length: 6.7-8 inches, wing 4.9-5, bill .9-1, tarsus .9-1. Toes 
long and slender and slightly margined. Adults in summer plumage: Head and back 
heavily striped with black and light rusty, rump grayish brown, upper tail coverts white, 
tail grayish brown; underparts white; neck, breast, and sides streaked and spotted, 
washed with huffy, color of breast fading gradually below; iris brown, bill mainly black, 
lower mandible, legs, and feet dark greenish. Adults in winter plumage: Wings, rump, 
upper tail coverts, and tail as in summer, striping of back less distinct, color lighter, 
grayish brown. Young in first winter plumage: Like winter adults but feathers 
largely marked with tawny, and chest buffy or pale fulvous. (See Comparisons 
under Baird and Pectoral Sandpipers, p. 271). 
Range. —North and South America mainly east of Rocky Mountains and Andes. 
Breeds (eggs taken) at Point Barrow, Alaska, Herschel Island, Yukon, Taylor Island, 
Victoria Land, Fort Anderson and Rendezvous Lake, Mackenzie, and Baffin Island; 
winters in eastern South America, chiefly from central to southern Argentina and 
south into ext reme southern Chile and the Falkland Islands. 
State Records. —Nearly seventy years have elapsed since the latest record 
was made of the White-rumped Sandpiper in New Mexico. When Woodhouse 
crossed the State in 1851, he met it near Albuquerque and again, September 16, 
on the Zuni. The next year, in October, Henry collected two specimens near Fort 
Fillmore. These records constitute the entire history of the species to date in New 
Mexico. 
Migrating through the Mississippi Valley and occasionally along the eastern foot¬ 
hills of the Rocky Mountains, it probably still occurs rarely in the Rio Grande and 
Pecos Valleys of New Mexico.—W. W. Cooke. 
General Habits. —The White-rumped Sandpiper, which suggests 
the Pectoral in appearance but for its more rufous, striped upperparts 
and strikingly white rump, which flashes plainly as its passes, “certain 
advertisement of the species” especially in conjunction with its green¬ 
ish legs, is found mainly on muddy flats or sandy shores. 
In South America, Doctor Wetmore found it in Paraguay from Sep¬ 
tember 6 to 21, 1920, its southward migration coming with a rush, 
and later in Argentina on its winter range on the pampa, he found it 
the “most common of the migrant shorebirds, two thousand or more 
sometimes being seen in a day” (1927a, pp. 9-10). 
Additional Literature.—Bent, A. C., U. S. Nat. Mus. Bull. 142, 181-193, 
1927 (courtship, nesting, behavior, etc.).— Brewster, William, Bull. Mus. Comp. 
Zool., Harvard College, LXVI, 244-246, 1925. 
BAIRD SANDPIPER: Pisobia bairdi (Coues) 
Description. — Length: 7-7.6 inches, wing 4.6-4.8, bill .9-1, tarsus 1. Bill 
slender , acute. Adults in breeding plmnage: Upperparts pale grayish buff, streaked 
and spotted with black; lower back, rump, central upper tail coverts, and middle tail 
feathers brown, outer tail feathers grayish; wings brown, feathers edged with lighter; 
axillars and most of under wing coverts white; throat white, breast with light buffy 
band, lightly streaked or spotted; sides and belly white; iris brown, bill, legs, and feet 
blackish. Adults in winter plumage: Upperparts grayish clay, obscurely streaked; 
underparts whitish, chest buffy. Young injuvenal plumage: Upperparts buffy drab, 
