Contributed by Charles Wendell Townsend
This little sandy colored sandpiper, appropriately called the "sand peep," seems most at home on the sea beaches, but it also frequents the sand flats of tidal estuaries, and to a less extent, the salt marshes, and is even found on the shores of inland lakes during the migrations.
Courtship.—Although I have never seen this bird on its northern breeding grounds, I have been so fortunate as to have heard many times the courtship song during the migrations on the New England coast, and to have witnessed some, at least, of its posturing on the ground. This sandpiper is more of a musician than the least, and his song is well worth hearing. I can but repeat what I have already published on the subject (1905):
Rising on quivering wings to about 30 feet from the ground, the bird advances with rapid wing beats, curving the pinions strongly downward, pouring forth a succession of musical notes—a continuous quavering trill—and ending with a few very sweet notes that recall those of a goldfinch. He then descends to the ground where one may be lucky enough, if near at hand, to hear a low musical cluck from the excited bird. This is, I suppose, the full love flight song, and is not often heard in its entirety, but the first quavering trill is not uncommon, a single bird or member of a flock singing this as he flies over.
Dr. Joseph Grinnell (1900) writes as follows of this species at Cape Blossom, Alaska, in July:
A few were to be found in the Interior on damp, grassy flats, but the strip of low meadow bordering the lagoon back of the mission was by far the most popular resort. Here the grass was short and smooth as a lawn, with occasional narrow branches from the main slough cutting their way back toward the higher ground. In one part of this stretch of tide flats the sandpipers were so numerous that as many as a dozen pairs were in sight at once, and their twittering notes were to be heard on all sides. They were flying back and forth over the meadows chasing one another, with shrill, rolling notes uttered so continuously as to become almost inaudible from their monotony. At times in an individual case this trilling would become so intensified as to remind one of the shrill notes of the white throated swift.
Joseph Dixon (1917a), writing of a bird that sang at an elevation of about 50 feet above the nest says: "His song seemed to come from every direction, and this illusion was difficult to account for even by the unusual location of the songster." Whether the whinny heard from birds, many of which are posturing on the sand is a modification of the nuptial song or rather a partial reproduction of it, I do not know, but I am inclined to think it is. Many of these musicians appear on close scrutiny to be young birds, which would explain the imperfection of the song. The posturing is often in the nature of mock fighting—I have never seen any real blows exchanged—when two, facing each other, crouch almost flat on the sand, and then suddenly spring at each other with wings outspread. Again, two would slowly walk toward each other with neck and body almost touching the ground and with head up. This act is often performed with tail cocked up over the back, displaying a white triangle of tail coverts, and every now and then the birds would run at each other with outspread wings. All birds acting thus appeared to be uttering a series of rolling notes, which, emitted from a number of birds scattered over the flats, produces a considerable volume of sound. I have described this partial song as a whinny, and have tried to reduce it to syllables—eh, eh, eh, or what-er, what-er.
Lucien M. Turner in his Ungava notes records two individuals that "ran back and forth, uttering a purring twitter, holding their wings over their back with the head and neck depressed, while the posterior portion of the body was somewhat elevated. The throat was at times inflated and at other times every feather of the body was nearly reversed, presenting a strange sight."
Herbert W. Brandt supplies the following from observations in Alaska: