distinguishable subspecies, the typical race breeding in
Mongolia, Kamchatka, and Eastern Siberia as well as on the
Commander Islands, and wintering from the Philippines,
Celebes, etc., to New Guinea and Australia. It is this
form which has occurred in Alaska. _Charadrius mongolus
atrifrons_ Wagler, the western race, breeds from the
Kirghis Steppes in South Russia to the Himalayas and Tibet,
wintering in East Africa, Madagascar, the Seychelles,
India, Malacca, and the Great Sunda Isles.
Like several other Asiatic species, it occasionally wanders across
Bering Strait into extreme northwestern Alaska. Joseph Dixon (1918)
throws considerable doubt over the time-honored record of specimens
supposed to have been taken by Captain Moore of the plover on the
Choris Peninsula in the summer of 1849; his reasoning, which seems to
be sound, suggests that these specimens were probably taken on the
Siberian side. However, Alfred M. Bailey (1926) collected a male of
this species at Cape Prince of Wales on June 11, 1922, of which he says:
The tundra was still snow covered, only a small, sandy
strip being bare along Lopp Lagoon, and there I found
this little wanderer from the Siberian shore in company
with yellow wagtails. A south wind had been blowing for a
few days previous, which changed to the north the evening
before. On these changes of winds I observed that Old World
birds were likely to drift across the channel.
Harry S. Swarth has very kindly given me, in advance of publication
by the California Academy of Sciences, the latest records of the
occurrence of this species in Alaska. While collecting for the academy
on Nunivak Island, C. G. Harrold took two specimens, a female on
August 14 and a male on September 1, 1927. Two others were seen on
August 14, one on September 11, and one on September 13. It looks as if
this might be more than a casual straggler in Alaska.
Dr. Leonhard Stejneger (1885) writes:
The Mongolian plover is a very common resident on the
Commander Islands; in fact, one of the most characteristic
birds of their fauna. It is one of the brightest and
handsomest shore birds, and is always gladly welcomed
when making its appearance during the first half of May.
I used then to watch with delight these elegant runners,
wondering at the almost incredible rapidity with which they
move their legs when chasing each other over the pebbly
beach, or trying to escape the approaching hunter. Very
soon, however, the pairs retire to the place chosen for the
summer home, and, as soon as the eggs are laid, the birds
become more shy and do not expose themselves as much as
they did before.
_Nesting._--There are three sets of eggs in the United States National
Museum taken by Doctor Stejneger in the Commander Islands “during the
first days of June.” He says that the birds “do not fly directly from
the nest but run away a distance from it before taking wing,” which
makes it difficult to find the nests. A nest he describes--
Was found on the islet Toporkof, on the 4th of June,
1883, and contained three eggs. They were lying, with
their pointed ends inwards and downwards, in a slight
hollow in the ground between the stems of four _Angelica
archangelica_. Dry particles of the leaves and stems of
this plant, and numerous seeds of the same, formed the
nest, being evidently brought together by the bird itself.
The situation of the nest was about 40 feet from the line
of high water and about 14 feet above the level of the sea.
Mr. Jourdain contributes the following:
Interesting confirmation of Doctor Stejneger’s observations
on the breeding habits and eggs of this species have been
furnished by the recent discovery of the breeding haunts
of the western race by Messrs. H. Whistler (1925) and B.
B. Osmaston (1927) at high altitudes in the Himalayan
range. Mr. Whistler found at least five pairs breeding
on the stony wastes near the Chandra Lake in Lahul, at
14,000 feet on July 10 to 11. Two clutches, each of three
well-incubated eggs and one brood of three downy young
were taken. Other pairs were subsequently found breeding
in Spiti (13,500 ft.) and on the northern slopes of the
Bara Lacha range. Mr. B. B. Osmaston found this species not
uncommon in South and East Ladakh in summer, between 13,000
and 15,500 feet. It was located as breeding in Rukshu near
the Tsokar and Tso Morari Lakes at about 15,000 feet and
between the Indus and Shushal at 14,000 to 14,500 feet, by
the Pangong Lake at 14,000 and in the upper Surun Valley at
13,000 feet.
In every case three eggs or young were found and the nest was a slight
depression in the sand, among shingle (Osmaston, 1927), or in hollows
among the trailing stems of a small creeping ground plant with a
woodlike stem, sparingly lined with broken chips and fragments of the
plant stems (Whistler 1925).
_Eggs._--The nine eggs collected by Doctor Stejneger vary in shape from
ovate to ovate pyriform and they show no gloss. The ground colors vary
from “cinnamon buff” to “deep olive buff.” They are quite evenly, but
not heavily, marked with small spots of very dark browns, “warm sepia”
to “bone brown,” or brownish black. There is a set of three eggs,
which seems to be the usual number, in the collection of Col. John E.
Thayer, taken at Omsk, Siberia, on June 9, 1893. These are subpyriform
in shape, without gloss. The ground colors vary from “deep olive buff”
to “pale olive buff.” One egg is uniformly covered with fine pen-like
scrawls of “sepia” and “pale violet gray.” The others are marked,
chiefly in a ring near the large end, with similar scrawls and with
irregular spots of brownish black or black. The measurements of 15 eggs
average 35.2 by 26.2 millimeters; the eggs showing the four extremes
measure =37.5= by 27, 32 by =28.8= and =30.5= by =23.2= millimeters.
Mr. Jourdain says in his notes:
The 12 eggs taken by Osmaston (1927) averaged 36.7 by 26.3,
while the 6 obtained by Whistler (1925) averaged 38.4 by
26.5 millimeters, thus agreeing well on the whole with
those of the eastern race, but are as a rule rather larger.
The coloration is also similar, speckled with dark brown
spots on a ground of creamy stone.
The parent bird slips off the nest very quietly and returns
very cautiously by short runs. It is naturally very
difficult to follow in the great waste of sand and shingle.
When disturbed on the breeding ground the old birds behave
much as other sand plovers, flying round uneasily in
circles and running about swiftly, but were less noisy than
common or lesser ringed plovers.
_Young._--Doctor Stejneger (1885) says that the young ones are found--
about the middle of July. About this time the families
retire from the beach and are now met with in the interior,
where they ascend the mountains in search of tender
insects. I frequently met them at an altitude of 1,000 feet
or more above sea level. About the middle of September the
families return to the lowlands and to the beach, soon
afterwards leaving the islands.
While at Glinka, on Copper Island, in July, 1883, a
young bird of this species, not yet fully feathered, was
brought to me alive. Allowed to run free on the floor it
immediately commenced a very animated pursuit of the rather
numerous flies, which were caught with remarkable precision
and rapidity and devoured with an unsatiable appetite. The
little fellow did not pay any attention to the presence of
several persons in the small room, but when the dog rose
from his nap in the corner, the swift-footed fly killer
suddenly dropped flat on the floor, with withdrawn neck,
making himself as small and flat as possible, and remained
thus perfectly immovable until the dog turned his head the
other way, then he ran off to the darkest corner of the
room, where he remained until the former laid down in his
old place. Then he started the fly hunting again; the dog
rose once more, and the same performance was repeated.
Within half an hour, however, he had learned that the dog
did not take any notice of him whatever, and consequently
he afterwards paid as little attention to the dog as to man.
_Plumages._--The young bird referred to above was about half grown and
largely feathered when it died, but the specimen shows a little of the
natal down, mainly on the head, which is largely downy. The forehead
is buffy white, the crown mostly dark “bister,” and the sides of the
head are mottled with buffy and “bister”; the throat is pale buff. The
remiges are half grown and the new feathers of the mantle are “sepia,”
with “cinnamon-buff” tips; the feathers of the breast are “cinnamon
buff” or “pinkish buff” and those of the belly are white.
Evidently the juvenal plumage soon fades, for a specimen taken on
September 22, in full juvenal plumage, is much paler. The entire upper
parts are “hair brown” or “drab,” with narrow, pale, buffy edgings; the
forehead and under parts are white, but the breast is suffused with
“pinkish buff” and invaded on the sides with the “drab” of the upper
parts.
There is not sufficient material to show the molts and plumages
satisfactorily. Adults have a complete molt in August and September, at
which the cinnamon of the chest, neck, and head entirely disappears.
_Voice._--Doctor Stejneger (1885) says that “the call note is a clear,
penetrating _drrrriit_.” Mr. Jourdain adds: “The call note is described
by Whistler as a soft _twip_, and the alarm note as a sort of chatter
of two syllables _corr up_, not unlike the note of a frog and compared
by Osmaston to that of a nightjar. It is uttered usually on the wing
and also occasionally on the ground.”
DISTRIBUTION
_Range._--Eastern Asia and Oceanica; accidental in Alaska.
_Breeding range._--This race of the Mongolian plover breeds chiefly in
northeastern Siberia (Cape Serdze, Bering Island, Kamchatka, and the
Commander Islands); probably also in Dauria and Mongolia.
_Winter range._--The winter range includes the Philippine Islands, the
Moluccas, New Guinea, and northern Australia.
_Migration._--The species has been noted to arrive in spring at
Yokohama, Japan, on April 28, and at Bering Island, on May 11. A late
fall date on Bering Island is September 22.
_Casual records._--On June 11, 1925, an adult male was collected at
Cape Prince of Wales (Bailey). Two specimens were taken by C. G.
Harrold on Nunivak Island, Alaska, in 1927, one on August 14, and one
on September 1; others were seen on August 14 and September 11 and 13.
These are the only North American records.
_Egg dates._--Bering Island, June 4. Siberia, June 9.
PAGOLLA WILSONIA WILSONIA (Ord.)
WILSON PLOVER
HABITS
All along the Atlantic coast from New Jersey to Florida is a broken
chain of sea-girt islands, with broad or steep, sandy or shelly beaches
on the ocean side, backed in many places by shifting sand dunes and
bordered on the inner or bay side by wide marshes of waving grass or
extensive flats exposed at low tide. Here, on the broader, more open
sand flats, among a scattered array of shells, pebbles, and other
débris cast up by the sea, or in the flat hollows among the sand
dunes, this little sand plover makes its home, within sound of the
pounding surf and fanned by the ocean breezes that carve the dunes
into fantastic shapes. Here, if we love to wander in these seaside
solitudes, we may see this gentle bird running along the beach ahead
of us, his feet twinkling so fast that we can hardly see them; he is
unafraid, as he stops and turns to watch us; the black bands on his
head and breast help to obliterate his form and he might be mistaken
for an old seashell or bit of driftwood; but, as we draw near, he turns
and runs on ahead of us, leading us thus on and on up the beach. There
is an air of gentleness in his manner and an air of wildness in his
note as he flies away.
_Spring._--As the northern limit of the winter range extends well up
to central Florida, the Wilson plover has not far to migrate. It is an
early migrant. We saw it in Pinellas County, Fla., as early as February
7, where a few were present all winter. C. J. Pennock’s notes record
it at Charlotte Harbor on February 21 and 24, on two successive years.
Arthur T. Wayne (1910) says that it arrives in South Carolina late in
March; his earliest date is March 26.
_Courtship._--During the month of March, when this species became
common in the vicinity of Tampa Bay, Fla., I had some opportunities
to watch its simple courtship display. A male shot on March 14 had
sexual organs developed nearly to full breeding size and many of the
birds were in pairs. In making the display the male runs around the
female in a crouching, hunchbacked attitude, with the head lowered, the
tail depressed and spread, and the wings drooping. The female seems
indifferent at first, but finally she accepts the caresses of the male.
They seem to be preoccupied in their love affairs and allow a close
approach.
_Nesting._--On the sandy reefs and broad ocean beaches of the outer
islands about Bulls Bay, S. C., we found several nests of Wilson plover
on May 22 and 23, 1915. The nests were on the higher portions of
the beaches where the dry, sandy plains were sprinkled with bits of
broken shells, small stones, and pieces of driftwood or other rubbish
and where a few scattered weeds and grasses were the only signs of
vegetation. The nests were usually placed near some such object, or
partially sheltered by a few blades of grass, but some were out on the
open sand or in the flat sandy hollows between the dunes; they were
always beyond the reach of ordinary tides. Oyster-catchers and least
terns were nesting in the same localities and not far away willets were
nesting in the grassy places.
Among the Florida Keys, on May 8, 1903, we found a small colony nesting
on Lake Key; there were beaches of finely broken shells surrounding a
small shallow pond, more or less overgrown with small, scattered red
mangroves. A colony of least terns were nesting here and a few pairs of
black-necked stilts. Four nests of the plover were found, one out on
the open beach among the terns’ nests and the others under the shelter
of little mangrove seedlings. These and all the other nests of Wilson
plover that I have found were mere hollows in the sand with no apparent
attempt at lining, but others have occasionally found them evidently
lined with bits of broken shell. Henry Thurston (1913) found a nest
“snuggled closely to the stump” of a “ripped up” palmetto; the eggs
were “resting in a small hole that had been scooped out in the sand
and adorned with a few twigs.” He left this nest and returned later
in an attempt to see the female leave the nest. As, he “got within a
few yards the male, unobserved before as he was facing him and was
therefore practically invisible, piped several notes. Swiftly and
mouse-like the female glided from her treasures, crouching low beside
the stump and did not stand erect until she reached the water’s edge.”
The Wilson plover might almost be said to nest in colonies, although
the nests are usually not close together; N. B. Moore says in his notes
that they are never nearer than 20 yards apart. Oscar E. Baynard (1914)
found a colony of at least 50 pairs nesting on a bank of white sand,
probably half a mile long and barely a foot above high-water line. He
relates an interesting experience in changing eggs from one nest to
another. One of a set of three heavily incubated eggs that he had taken
hatched out in his possession; as he could not find the nest from which
they came, he hunted up another nest which contained fresh eggs; and
following is his account of what happened:
I took these eggs and placed the young bird and my two eggs
in their place, and then moved off and sat down to watch
developments. In a few minutes the mother bird ran up to
the nest, looked hard at the young bird, which had run off
about 2 feet from the eggs, circled the nest several times,
and then squatted down on the two eggs and began calling
softly to the young bird. In a few minutes he crept up to
the old bird. She looked him over for fully two minutes,
then decided to adopt him, raked him under her out of the
sun, and settled down as contentedly as if the family were
really her own. Two days later I ran the boat close to the
beach opposite this nest. The old bird ran off, and up
jumped three young and took off up the beach after her.
Donald J. Nicholson tells me that he once found a nest “about
three-quarters of the way up the side of a sand dune under the shelter
of a small bunch of grass.” He has also found this plover breeding on
Merritts Island, Fla., “on the exposed sandy patches along the Indian
River and around the water holes throughout the island”; here some
of the nests were sheltered among open growths of pickerel weed or
_Salicornia_.
Dr. Frank M. Chapman (1891) found this bird breeding commonly near
Corpus Christi, Tex., and says: “A nest found April 25 was placed in
some short grass about 50 feet from the water. It was composed of a few
straws placed at the bottom of a slight depression in the sand, and
contained three fresh eggs.”
_Eggs._--The Wilson plover ordinarily lays three eggs, often only two,
and very rarely four; I have a set of four eggs in my collection, taken
by Dr. Eugene E. Murphey on the coast of South Carolina. N. B. Moore
says in his notes that a day often intervened between the laying of
eggs, once an interval of two days occurred and in one nest the third
egg was laid on the ninth day after the first. The eggs are ovate to
short ovate in shape and they have no gloss. The ground colors vary
from “cream buff” to “cartridge buff.” They are usually thickly and
quite evenly covered with small spots, small irregular blotches and
scrawls of black, with a few similar, underlying markings of pale
shades of “Quaker drab.” The measurements of 66 eggs average 35.7 by
26.2 millimeters; the eggs showing the four extremes measure =38.5= by
26, 37 by =27=, =31.5= by 26, and 34 by =25= millimeters.
_Young._--N. B. Moore observed that the period of incubation is 24 or
25 days. I have no data showing that the male shares in the duty of
incubation, but he certainly shows considerable interest in the care
of the young. The young are able to leave the nesting hollow soon
after they are hatched and they are strong and swift runners, as well
as adept in the art of hiding. The female is a past master in the art
of decoying an intruder away from her young. Mr. Thurston (1913) has
described this strategy very well, as follows:
As I approached this strip, seemingly from nowhere there
appeared a female plover, calling plaintively. Now I knew
that the season of nesting had begun. She was soon joined
by a male and another female that chorused with her their
wishes for my departure. How she coaxed me to follow her!
This I did for a time, trailing behind as she struggled
along on one leg, the other crumpled under her. Tediously
she kept ahead, calling--sobbing, I should have said--one
of the most pathetic yet beautiful notes I have heard.
Surely if ever there was a picture of parental distress
it was she. Finally, as though exhausted, she sank to the
sand and lay on her side gasping. The other two flew back
and forth overhead, whistling plaintively, but she heeded
them not, nor my approach, and lay there panting. I was
sure now that she was tired by her exertion and hurried to
catch her, only to learn that she was “playing possum.”
She allowed me to almost touch her, and fluttered off
again. Evidently she was not satisfied that her nest was
safe and she tried new tactics this time. With seemingly
broken wings that trailed as though helpless at her sides,
she started down the beach and once more I followed after,
but this time increased my speed. As I had about caught up
with her she gave a joyous whistle, sprang into the air,
and those wounded wings carried her like a bullet around a
point of wooded land and out of sight. She had accomplished
her purpose, as I had hopelessly lost the place from which
she started. Search as I might, and did, I could not find
it.
_Plumages._--The upper parts of the downy young Wilson plover are of
about the same color pattern as the egg to make it equally invisible on
the sand. The crown, back, rump, wings, and thighs are “cream buff,”
mottled with black; the forehead, sides of the head, and under parts
are white; there is a broad white collar around the neck, and the outer
joint of the wing is white.
The juvenal plumage, in what specimens I have seen, July 20 to 27, is
much like that of the adult female in winter, but the colors are duller
and the breast band is incomplete or only suggested. Perhaps earlier in
the season these birds might have shown buffy edgings which had since
worn away. Probably a postjuvenal molt takes place, but I have not been
able to trace it. In the first winter plumage the sexes are alike; but
at the first prenuptial molt, in February and March, the male assumes,
partially at least, the black markings on the head and breast. At the
next complete molt, the first postnuptial, the adult winter plumage is
acquired.
Adults have an incomplete prenuptial molt, from January to March,
involving the body plumage, and a complete postnuptial molt, from July
to October. The sexes are quite unlike in nuptial plumage, the black
markings on the head and breast of the male being replaced by “wood
brown” in the female. In winter they are much alike, but I believe that
in fully adult males there is always more or less black in the breast
band.
_Food._--Audubon (1840) says of these birds:
They feed fully as much by night as by day, and the large
eyes of this, as of other species of the genus, seem to
fit them for nocturnal searchings. Their food consists
principally of small marine insects, minute shellfish, and
sand worms, with which they mix particles of sand.
The stomachs of five birds taken on the coast of Alabama by Arthur H.
Howell (1924) contained “crabs and shrimps, with a few mollusks and
flies.” One taken in Porto Rico by Stuart T. Danforth (1926) contained
Dytiscid larvae and adults.
_Behavior._--Audubon (1840) describes the behavior of this plover very
well, as follows:
The flight of this species, is rapid, elegant, and
protracted. While traveling from one sand beach or island
to another, they fly low over the land or water, emitting
a fine, clear, soft note. Now and then, when after the
breeding season they form into flocks of 20 or 30, they
perform various evolutions in the air, cutting backward
and forward, as if inspecting the spot on which they wish
to alight, and then suddenly descend, sometimes on the
sea beach and sometimes on the more elevated sands at a
little distance from it. They do not run so nimbly as the
piping plovers nor are they nearly so shy. I have in fact
frequently walked up so as to be within 10 yards or so of
them. They seldom mix with other species, and they show a
decided preference to solitary uninhabited spots.
_Voice._--My field notes, written over 20 years ago, refer to Wilson
plover flying about their breeding grounds, whistling their musical
call notes, somewhat suggestive of the notes of the piping plover, but
not so loud nor so rich in tone. Francis M. Weston writes to me that
“the note of anxiety, when on the ground, is a sharp _wheet_, beween a
chirp and a whistle. On the wing, it gives a low _tut-tut_, somewhat
like the alarm note of the wood thrush, but pitched lower and never of
more than two syllables.” C. J. Pennock says, in his notes, that when
they have eggs or young “they fly about close overhead, or run along
the sand, calling _queet, queet, quit it, quit it_, in a high-pitched
tone, frequently three or four birds joining in the vocal protest.”
John T. Nichols says in his notes: “The commonest note of this species
on the ground and on the wing is a ternlike _quip_, sometimes double
_qui-pip_. Less frequently, on the ground, it has a surprisingly human
whistled _whip_.”
_Field marks._--The best field character of the Wilson plover is the
long, heavy, wholly black bill, which is very conspicuous in all
plumages; it is relatively larger and more prominent than that of
the black-bellied plover. The Wilson is decidedly larger than the
semipalmated or the piping plover; it is slightly lighter in color than
the former and much darker than the latter. I have noticed that in
flight it appears quite dark colored above, with no conspicuous white
except in the lateral tail feathers.