HABITS
A long time ago Col. John E. Thayer (1909) added this species to the North American list. In a lot of birds which he received from A. H. Dunham were a pair of adults and two young of the rufous-necked sandpiper, or eastern least stint, as it is also called. They were collected at Nome, Alaska, on July 10, 1908, where they had evidently bred. This record was discredited, however, and the species was placed on the hypothetical list. But the species was firmly established as a North American bird by Alfred M. Bailey (1926), who reported the capture of two specimens in Alaska, an adult female at Cape Prince of Wales on June 11, and a bird of the year at Wainwright on August 15, 1922. The birds were breeding in that vicinity, an offshoot from the main breeding range of the species in northeastern Siberia.
Spring.—The main migration route is northward from southern Asia, the Philippine Islands, and even Australia, through the Kurile and Commander Islands and Kamchatka to its breeding grounds. Dr. Leonhard Stejneger (1885) says:
This species arrives at Bering Island late in May in rather large flocks, but does not stay long. None were met with during the whole summer, until, in the first half of September, they took a short rest on the shores of our island before continuing their long travel to the southward.
A large series of these birds was collected by the Jesup North Pacific expedition in northeastern Siberia. Dr. J. A. Allen (1905) quotes from the field notes of N. G. Buxton as follows:
Abundant spring and fall migrant, and some breed at Kooshka, but the majority move farther inland during the breeding season. First birds arrived May 28, and were common on the 30th in large flocks and in company with the red backed. By June 5 they have paired or passed on, and are not common again until the second week of July. They have mostly gone by September 11. In habits similar to Pelidna alpina.
Nesting.—Mr. Bailey (1926) was fortunate enough to see a pair building their nest, along a stream bed on the high tundra at the base of Wales Mountain, Alaska; in his notes for June 14, 1922, he wrote:
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: