Tringa solitaria
Order Charadriiformes
Family Scolopacidae
Subfamily Tringinae
Adult in spring.— Upper parts olive-brown, sparsely speckled with white; front of neck streaked with dusky; outer tail-feathers white, barred with black; wing not showing a row of white spots in flight.
Adult in fall.— Upper parts dark ashy, even less speckled with white; front of neck less streaked with dusky.
Immature.— Upper parts brownish-gray, everywhere speckled with white; sides of head and neck dusky; rest of under parts white; tail as in adult; legs greenish.
The Solitary Sandpiper is a not uncommon migrant throughout New York and New England, passing north in May, and returning in late July, August, and September. It is the only sandpiper except the Spotted, which occurs regularly away from the sea-coast or from extensive bodies of water. In fact, it may found as a migrant near any ditch or pool of stagnant water, and Sandpiper seems to prefer a muddy shore to the pebbly beaches which the Spotted Sandpiper haunts.
Its notes are almost identical with those of the Spotted Sandpiper. It sometimes occurs in sloughs on the marshes, and might there be confused with the Summer Yellowlegs. Its tail, however, distinguishes it both from the Yellowlegs and from the Spotted Sandpiper. The central pair of feathers are dark, but the outer ones are white, barred with black; it therefore shows much more white in the outspread tail as it flies up than the Spotted Sandpiper, but less than the Yellow-legs. Moreover, it lacks the line of white in the wing which is so characteristic of the Spotted Sandpiper, and its flight is generally higher and wilder. Like the Yellowlegs, it constantly nods its head and neck.
Hoffmann – A Guide to the Birds of New England and Eastern New York (1904)