In the days when colour printing was extremely expensive, the Avicultural Society had special appeals for funds to support the appearance in Avicultural Magazine of the occasional colour plate. A well-known bird artist was then commissioned. Although the whole run of the Society’s magazines can be found online, the plates rarely see the light of day. Therefore I decided to show one, now and again, on this site. This is the 10th in the series.
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The article accompanying this plate was written by Ryan Bruce Walden (1937-2020). He was supervisor of the live animal exhibits at the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia. The plate was the work of John Raymond Quinn (1938-2012). He was staff artist at the same institution.
Avicultural Magazine 74, 1968
The spotted sandpiper (Actitis macularius) is common bird in North America where it breeds generally close to freshwater. In the winter, it migrates south to the southern USA, Central and South America. We have seen it in Florida, Guyana and Peru—but also on a local beach two years ago in deepest Ayrshire where it attracted the attention of birders and photographers for weeks. As it ran along the shoreline searching between the rocks and clumps of seaweed for food it came very close to those watching it, too close in fact, for the long lenses of the cameras.
Where do these vagrants go when they disappear suddenly? Do they ever manage to get back across the Atlantic?
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| The Ayrshire Coast in Scotland was where this vagrant from North America was photographed in 2021 |
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