Only once did I note any courtship activity. On this occasion (May 24), the male would fly a few feet above the female, while she rested on the ground, with quick erratic wing strokes suggesting a nighthawk. Frequently he would alight and raise the wings high over the back as a gull does before folding them. Then with the forearms perpendicular, the primaries would be slowly raised and lowered like a pump handle, generally lowered to right angles with the forearms, sometimes lower. Not a sound was uttered.
Alfred M. Bailey (1926), whose observations were made at Cape Prince of Wales, Alaska, says:
Cutting down the opposite side of the ridge, I heard many calls which reminded me of home in the early spring, for the combined totals sounded like the singing of many little grass frogs in a meadow pond. It was the call, or rather the "spring song," of the Baird sandpiper. I soon flushed a little female, which fluttered away uttering cries of alarm. I concealed myself, and she soon returned, the male also hovering about, making his little froglike peep. At times he would rise high in the air, in the way so characteristic of male sandpipers, give forth his song, and sail down to perch.
Nesting.—MacFarlane's notes mention seven nests found in the vicinity of Franklin Bay, but very few data were given; "on June 24, 1864, a nest containing four eggs was found in the Barren Grounds, in a swampy tract between two small lakes, and was composed of a few decayed leaves placed in a small cavity or depression in the ground, shaded by a tuft of grass." John Murdoch (1885) says:
The nest was always well hidden in the grass and never placed in marshy ground or on the bare black parts of tundra, and consists merely of a slight depression in the ground, thinly lined with dried grass. All the eggs we found were obtained from the last week in June to the first week of July, a trifle later than the other waders. The sitting female when disturbed exhibits the greatest solicitude, running about with drooping, outspread wings, and loud outcry, and uses every possible wile to attract the intruder from the eggs. The nest is so well concealed and forms so inconspicuous an object that the only practical way to secure the eggs is to withdraw to one side and allow the sitting bird to return, carefully marking where she alights. Having done this on one occasion and failing to find the eggs, after flushing the bird two or three times I discovered that I had walked on the eggs, though I had been looking for them most carefully.
Mr. Brooks (1915) writes:
Two nests were found, each containing four eggs and about one quarter incubated on June 12 and 14, 1914. Murdoch found them nesting rather later than other waders at Point Barrow, but my experience at Demarcation Point was quite the opposite, for here they were the first to breed. A female taken June 2, had a fully formed and colored egg about ready to lay. Both of the above nests were on dry, well-drained tundra near the bases of knolls. The nests were like the other sandpipers, and lined with dry willow leaves, but the cavities were less deep than those of the semipalmated sandpiper.
The female was on one nest and the male on the other. The former left the nest when I was some distance away and flying directly toward me alighted within a few feet. While I was at the nest she walked hurriedly about close by constantly uttering a plaintive weet-weet-weet always repeated three times. Occasionally she would take a short flight about me and utter a note very similar to the rattling call of the pectoral sandpiper. The male when disturbed acted quite differently. He sat closer and on leaving the nest showed the greatest concern, dragging a "broken" wing in the most distressing manner. In neither case was the mate about as frequently occurs with the semipalmated sandpiper.
Mr. Dixon (1917) says:
At Griffin Point, less than 50 miles to the eastward of Demarcation Point, the first set of eggs (fresh) was taken on June 24. The last set was found July 11, with the four eggs nearly ready to hatch. Murdoch speaks of the nests being well concealed and always hidden in the grass. In those nests which we found, no attempt had been made at such concealment, as they were placed absolutely in the open, with nothing to cover or conceal the eggs at all, and the nests so shallow that the tops of the eggs were almost or quite level with the surrounding grass. Far from being conspicuously exposed thereby, however, the eggs were shielded from discovery in the most effective manner possible, for in color and markings they blended so perfectly with the brown tundra that a person could easily look directly at them from a distance of 6 feet and still not be able to see them.
This method of nesting seems to be the most effective way of escaping one great danger at least, namely, the notice of the countless jaegers, both parasitic and pomarine. These robbers subsist almost entirely during the breeding period on the young and eggs of other birds, and cruise continually back and forth over the sandpipers' nesting ground, looking for the least telltale feather, bit of wind-blown down, or other object which might afford a clue to the whereabouts of a nest.