Tip-up

( Originally Published Early 1900's )

The familiar little Spotted Sandpiper, Tip-up, or Peet-weet (Actitis macularia) of temperate North America is almost too well known to need ex-tended description. Briefly it may be described as seven and a half or eight inches long, with long, pointed wings and a rather short, rounded tail, the color above being a brownish olive-green with a metallic or bronzy luster, marked with numerous lines and irregular spots of brownish black, a line over the eye and the entire under parts being white covered with numerous round and oval spots of brownish black; the wings are brown with a greenish luster and considerable white. While this species is found to some extent along the coasts, it is very generally distributed throughout the country in summer, hardly a lake, pond, or stream being without its pairs of Tip-ups. When startled it flies to a short distance, generally across the small stream, uttering its plaintive peet-weet, peetweet, and nervously teetering up and down and flirting the tail, or running swiftly along the shore. A certain territory along shores or streams appears to be allotted to an individual or pair, much as the Dippers divide up their haunts, and after one is urged to several short flights which apparently take it to the border of its domain, it doubles back to the starting point.