American Golden Plover — Part 4

Charadrius dominicus

Images coming soon.

In the interior, for an inland route is followed as well as a coastwise one, the ring-neck runs about the margins of small lakes or ponds, rivers and marshes, everywhere looking for worms, small bits of shell fish, eggs of fish, and insects; always alert and busy and hungry. General Greeley found these plovers still nesting in Grinnell Land early in July; yet by the end of the month stragglers from large flocks begin to arrive in the United States--a little journey to try the wings of fledglings en route to Brazil. It is said the male arranges the small pear shaped buff eggs, spotted with chocolate, with the pointed end toward the centre of the depression in the ground that answers as nest, the better to cover all four with his breast, for it is he who does most, if not all, of the incubating. Greenlanders, who have a longer opportunity to study this interesting little bird, say that it claps its wings before a storm and becomes strangely excited; but although it has the dainty habit of lifting its wings high above its back till they meet, on alighting, no excited clapping of them has been recorded here. This is the most abundant and most widely distributed of the ring-necks.

Piping Plover

(AEgialitis meloda)

Very slight differences in the habits of plovers that haunt our beaches have been noted by the most tireless students, and were it not for the piping plover's notes there would be nothing beyond a reference to its stronger maritime preferences and more southerly nesting range to add to the account of the ring-neck. The piper, much lighter in color, is the lightest species that visits us. It nests among the shingle on our beaches from Virginia to Maine and beyond, where it is next to impossible to discover the finely speckled drab eggs that imitate the sand perfectly; and possibly because it does not pass half its year in Arctic seclusion, as some other plovers do, it is not quite so gentle and confiding as they--this is the sum of its peculiarities. Its pathetically small size, scarcely larger than that of an English sparrow, should be, but is not, a sufficient protection from the gun.

"It cannot be called a ‘whistler' nor even a 'piper' in an ordinary sense," says Mr. Langille. "Its tone has a particularly striking and musical quality. Queep, queep, queep-o, or peep, peep, peep-lo, each syllable being uttered with a separate, distinct, and somewhat long drawn enunciation, may imitate its peculiar melody, the tone of which is round, full, and sweet, reminding one of a high key on an Italian hand-organ or the hautboy in a church organ." The sweet, low notes, it should be added, have an almost ventriloqual quality also, that often makes it difficult to locate the bird by the ear alone.

Retiring to the dunes and meadows back of the beach only to sleep or rest when the tide is high, we most frequently see this active little sprite running nimbly along the wet sands, poking among the shells, chasing out after the waves, and hurriedly picking up bits of food before being chased in by them, or flying above the crests short distances along the beach, usually to escape a deluge from the combing breakers. All its movements are alert, quick, graceful. At Muskegat, where this plover's nests are found among the terms,' the plover loses little by comparison with those preeminently graceful birds. Around the great lakes scattered flocks are seen in the migrations chiefly; but it is on the secluded Atlantic beaches, comfortably distant from seaside resorts, that we find the piping plover most abundant.

The Belted Piping Plover (Aegialitis meloda circumcincta), a western representative of the preceding, differs from it only in having the black links on the breast joined to form a band.

The Mountain Plover (Aegialitis montana), a distinctly prairie bird, rather than a mountaineer, has grayish brown upper parts, the feathers margined with chestnut; the white under parts grow yellowish on breast, but without belt or patches; the front of the crown and the cheeks black. It is almost nine inches long. It has all the charming grace, quickness of motion, and winning confidence that characterize its clan.