Charadrius semipalmatus
Order Charadriiformes
Family Charadriidae
Subfamily Charadriinae
Other names: Ring-neck
Adult.— Forehead white; forward part of crown, stripe under each eye and over bill black; throat and narrow ring around neck white; band across breast and neck black; rest of upper parts grayish-brown; rest of under parts white; legs yellow; base of bill orange; tip black.
The Semipalmated Plover, or Ring-neck, is a common migrant along the sea-coast in May, and again from the middle of July to October.
Ring-necks frequent the beaches and mud-flats exposed at low tide. They are not, as a rule shy, and if startled, fly only a short distance, uttering as they rise a sweet call, chee-wee, as characteristic of the mud-flats and beaches as the kew, kew, kew, kew of the Yellow-legs is of the grassy marshes. They are often associated with the smaller sandpipers known as “Peep” [Least Sandpiper], or with their larger relative the Black-bellied Plover; their bobbing readily distinguishes them from the Peep. They are much commoner than the Piping Plover, and are a darker shade of brown on the back, the color of wet rather than of dry sand. The black ring encircles the breast, while in the Piping Plover the black bands from each side of the breast do not meet.
Hoffmann – A Guide to the Birds of New England and Eastern New York (1904)