Bae AUDUBON BULLETIN 
Published Quarterly by the 
list NeOimoe AED UO BON?’ SO CLE T Y 
2001 NORTH CLARK STREET, CHICAGO 14, ILLINOIS 
Number 69 March, 1949 
The Upland Plover 
By DorotHy HELMER 
“EXPLORING ACTION INSTEAD OF THINGS” is the intriguing title of an article 
by Dr. Austin L. Rand on Arizona birds and mammals, their behavior 
patterns with their biological meanings. In other words, instead of planning 
a far wilderness trip to look for rare birds and mammals, he undertook a 
different sort of search among our more familiar species to discover “how 
they live and why they do thing’s.”” Still closer to home, in his study of the 
upland plover in the Chicago region, Cleveland P. Grant appealed to the 
hunters of game birds to learn the fun of watching bird habits, “hunting 
birds with binoculars to explore the seasonal cycle of their behavior.”’ 
Making our first attempt in this field, after a few seasons spent in learn- 
ing a fair list of birds throughout the year around Chicago, my husband 
and I had a good time last spring and summer watching the seasonal 
behavior cycle of the upland plover. 
As most of us know, the upland plover, bartramia longicauda, is not a 
plover at all but belongs to the sandpiper family, scolopacidae. Old-timers 
called him the Bartramian sandpiper. He was discovered, described as a 
new species, and named after a friend by Alexander Wilson. 
He now is called the upland plover because of his habits. Living in the 
uplands and prairies, he seldom is seen near water and rarely wades or 
swims. Like a plover, too, he runs swiftly and stops suddenly: Though 
friendly and unquarrelsome and congregating at some seasons in family 
and neighborhood groups, he is not truly gregarious like most of our sand- 
pipers. qs 
Harry Smith called the bird to our attention. He and Philip DuMont 
had noticed its frequent appearance on the prairies just west of Evanston, 
and Mr. Smith said that although it seems a common bird to us here, its 
‘concentration in this area is an unusual circumstance. . 
My husband and I watched the plovers in a subdivision west of Evans- 
ton, south of Main st. and east of Crawford ave., when they first appeared 
about the middle of April, 1948, until we lost track of them early in July. 
It was fun seeing for ourselves what hitherto we had only read about, 
the behavior pattern of “one of the most picturesque of our birds.” 
Although plovers were seen in several places around Chicago last season, 
we confined our search to the streets of this one subdivision and found 
them concentrated in only one place a few blocks square. 
_ Quack grass and timothy were the dominant plants in the area, with a 
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