Life histories of North American shore birds, Part 1 (of 2)Bent, Arthur Cleveland
Science
Life histories of North American shore birds, Part 1 (of 2)
Bent, Arthur Cleveland
Birds -- Behavior; Shore birds -- North America
With my glasses I watched a pair of little pink-necked sandpipers
as they worked around the grass at the foot of the hill. The male
would give up his searching among the dried grass stalks to
demonstrate his love for his little partner, upon which she would
take to wing and circle about. Finally she entered a little tussock
of grass, standing on her "nose" fluttering her tail and wings.
Soon the male pushed his way inside, too, and after a few more
rustling about, they took to wing. I looked in the grass and found
a little cavity which they were just lining with leaves. Upon
examining their nesting clump, I found a small pit, exactly similar
to the nest of the western sandpiper, in which they had deposited
about 20 small willow leaves. I marked the spot carefully, but upon
my return found the nest abandoned.
W. Sprague Brooks (1915) found a few pairs breeding at the head of
Providence Bay, northeastern Siberia; he writes:
Two sets of fresh eggs, numbering three and four, respectively,
were taken on June 11, 1913; the male incubating one and the female
the other. Both birds when disturbed fluttered off the nest like
other sandpipers. The nests were cavities on small mounds of tundra
lined with dry willow leaves.
_Eggs._--I have been unable to locate any eggs of the rufous-necked
sandpiper and do not know what became of the two sets referred to above.
Joseph Dixon (1918) implies that the eggs resemble those of the
spoonbill sandpiper.
_Plumages._--In the downy young the crown and upper parts are variegated
with black, "tawny" and "warm buff"; the forehead, superciliary stripe
and sides of the head and neck are "warm buff"; the under parts are
white, washed on the breast with pale buff; a narrow median stripe on
the forehead and a broader loral stripe are black. The specimen
described above was taken at Cape Serdze, Siberia, on July 16, and shows
the beginning of the juvenal plumage; the back and scapulars are well
covered with young feathers and the wings are well started, though the
bird is still very small and mostly downy. The feathers of the back and
scapulars are black, broadly edged with "hazel," and the scapulars are
tipped with white.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account