Our Long-Legged Friends near Home 
Where are they? That is just it! One day 
they are here, and the next day they are not, and 
you can never tell where or when you are going 
to find them. You have only indications to rely 
upon, and indications are mostly unreliable when 
shore birds are concerned. 
Of course there are the southwest gales that 
pile the gray sea through the sand inlets, flood¬ 
ing the reaches of salt lands and covering the 
bars and shoals. There are the drab drizzles of 
shortening September days, and there is the cut¬ 
ting of the salt meadows, but while these con¬ 
ditions frequently bring the birds, quite as often 
they fail, and the gunner must take his chances 
of striking a flight. 
No birds—except the woodcock—are more un¬ 
certain in their actions than the long-shanked 
fellows of the beaches, and even men who have 
pursued them for years are at a loss to explain 
the mystery of their movements. All that is 
known is that one day they suddenly appear in 
astounding numbers, only to depart as suddenly, 
and for days, even for weeks, to come no more. 
The fact that they are migratory, and the prob¬ 
ability that, unlike most migratory birds, they 
move in tremendous divisions, sometimes sepa¬ 
rated from each other by long periods, may ex¬ 
plain their strange comings and goings. 
But it is evident that each year brings them 
down from the northward in diminishing num¬ 
bers, at least in the localities near home, for in 
the olden days, in fact no longer ago than fifteen 
years, it was possible at least twice a week dur¬ 
ing the season to make good-sized bags within 
two hours of New York. Now, one may sit on 
the most alluring salt pond or on the most tempt-* 
ing bar for days at a time without so much as 
seeing half a dozen birds. But there are occas¬ 
ional times when the gun grows hot, and the bag 
is numbered in scores. 
Perhaps only a limited number of those read¬ 
ers who live in and around New York city know 
that almost within arm’s reach lie what were at 
one time the most famous feeding grounds for 
shore birds in the country. These are situated 
along the south shore of Long Island, from 
Hempstead east to Quogue, a series of creeks, 
meadows, marshes, beaches and bars, swept down 
their center by the broad reach of Great South 
Bay. 
Through this region yellowlegs of both varie¬ 
ties, plover, an army of various sandpipers, and 
even the rare brown curlew swarmed in years 
gone by, and though greatly diminished in num¬ 
bers, may still at times be bagged if one knows 
where to go, and strikes one of those rare flight 
days. A ride on the Long Island railroad of 
forty-five minutes to two hours will take one to 
those favorite haunts, and there is always that 
chance of meeting a big flight—a chance which, 
if realized once, will compensate for a dozen 
fruitless quests, for when the birds fly, shore 
bird shootng is fascinating sport. 
But you must strike it right, and the only way 
to do that is to stay for two or three days and 
preferably a week or more. Then when you 
find yourself in one of those south shore towns 
you must know where to go, or your trip will 
be vain, for the lessening number of birds makes 
it imperative for the sportsman to visit the best 
grounds. 
One of the most famous places along the south 
shore is Oak Island. You reach it by going by 
train to Babylon or Bay Shore, and then travers¬ 
ing five or six miles of bay. From the former 
place a steamboat will take you there; from the 
latter you must engage a bayman and his boat. 
This is the most practical way, for the best 
shooting at Oak Island is in a certain pond that 
you will have difficulty in finding unless you know 
its location or go with someone who does. It is 
an easy matter to hire a bayman to take you 
across to Oak Island and furnish you with his 
services and those of his comfortable little sloop 
for about $7 a day. Or if that is a trifle too 
steep for your pocketbook, have your man leave 
you at Oak Island, where there is a small hotel, 
and come for you when your trip is ended. 
The hotel is not palatial, but it is only half a 
mile from the ‘shooting pond. This half mile 
consists of a row, and you can hire a sharpie or 
skiff. 
Y r ears ago, before the b'ack powder of the 
’longshore shooter took its toll of thousands 
from the hordes of birds that swept down over 
Long Island through the months of July, August 
and September, this pond, which is on a point 
of meadow land to the left of the channel lead¬ 
ing into Oak Island Harbor, was one of the 
greatest places for yellowleg shooting on the 
south side. I shall never forget the September 
twenty years ago when three of us boys stumbled 
upon it for the first time. We had heard of the 
famous pond hole where the baymen’s guns thun¬ 
dered from daybreak to dusk and where bags of 
a hundred birds were not uncommon, but we did 
not know its exact location in the miles upon 
miles of meadow land that stretches along under 
the beach to either side of Oak Island Harbor. 
We were still in short trousers and our hunting 
efforts had been confined to the meadows on the 
mainland where the miniature Venetian city of 
the Havemeyer estate now stands, and where 
half a dozen yellowlegs in a day was considered 
a good bag even in those times. 
Starting at 2 o’clock in the morning late in 
August we slipped across the bay and anchored 
our skiff in Oak Island Harbor. Till four in the 
afternoon we tramped the salt land in fruitless 
search. And then as the sun was painting golden 
dreams along the west, we found it, and our 
hopes were realized. We might have searched 
in vain had not flock after flock of yellows and 
black-breasted plover streaming across attracted 
our attention. We watched where they dropped 
and went there. 
Since that time I have had good shore bird 
shooting on Cape Cod, and at various favorite 
spots along the Atlantic coast, but I never saw 
more birds at one time and killed less in propor¬ 
tion to the chances offered in my life. There 
were two blinds in the pond which covered per¬ 
haps two acres, and into these we hustled. We 
had no stool, but we did not need them. 
As we approached the pond dozens of snipe, 
as all shore birds are called by the baymen, rose, 
circled and alighted again. Driven in from the 
sandbars by the high tide they were there in 
hundreds, the air was filled with their whistlings, 
and more birds were coming in athwart the 
afterglow, circling, and as they received our 
fire, sounding their sharp whistling notes of 
alarm and drifting away to other havens. We 
shot all our shells away before dusk and killed, 
I think, fifteen birds, among them two jack 
curlew. 
Y r ear after year I visited that pond late in 
August or early in September, and each season 
I saw fewer birds. Last September I spent two 
days there. The first morning we bagged one 
yellowleg and three dowitchers. The second day 
one black-breasted plover fell to our bag, 
Even to-day one may sometimes get a fair 
day’s shooting in Oak Island Pond. A week 
after my last unlucky experience a friend 
brought down twenty-'six birds in a morning, the 
majority of them greater yellowlegs, winter 
birds, as the baymen call them. 
In the old days when Hempstead Plains were 
alive with golden plover the gunners in that sec¬ 
tion did not trouble themselves much about the 
waders of Plempstead Bay and its myriad creeks. 
. Later, however, when the market hunters’ guns 
had swept the sandy plains clear of the graceful 
little birds, hunters from New York found ample 
sport with wiilet and yellowlegs along the muddy 
creeks near Freeport and Baldwin. Fair bags 
can still be made in this region of mud and tide 
water under favorable circumstances. 
East of Smith’s Point, Pattersquash w 7 as the 
famous gunning ground. Its reputation even ex¬ 
ceeded those of Plempstead and Oak Island. 
Countless wiilet, yellowlegs and plover fell be¬ 
fore the guns of baymen and city sportsmen 
there in years gone by, nor is this locality to be 
sneezed at as a shore bird haunt to-day. Gun¬ 
ners from Bellport and Moriches can be found 
on it all through the season, and occasionally 
big bags are made. 
Point of the Beach, or to be exact, the east 
point of Fire Island Inlet where the Fire Island 
Beach narrows and ends, was once famous for 
snipe shooting. Now it is entirely played out. 
A score of years ago the lighthouse, the beacon 
that first greets all incoming liners, stood with¬ 
in half a mile of the inlet. Year by year the 
gray surf washed up tons of sand that as time 
passed built up a long extension to the original 
beach, until now the lighthouse is a good tWo 
miles from the point. Originally near the point 
a number of broad salt ponds were fed by the 
tide, but as the beach grew these were gradually 
landlocked and dried up, and with the passing 
of the tide water ponds came the passing of the 
shore birds in that locality. Aside from a few 
surf snipe, little gray fellows that are not worth 
shooting, one may watch his stool on Point of 
the Beach for days at a time with hardly so 
much as a shot at a plover or wiilet. 
