Page:Condor10(2).djvu/18

 72 VoL. X OBSERVATIONS ON THE NESTING HABITS OF THE PHAINOPEPLA By HARRIET WILLIAMS MYERS PHOTOGRAPHS BY LAWRENCE MA. COMBER N May 19th, 1907, I came upon a Phainopepla's nest built on a horizontal crotch of a large pepper tree some fifteen feet from the ground. The plac- ing of the nest in a horizontal crotch differed from any nest that I have ever seen built by these birds, the others being in .upright crotches. The limbs selected to hold the nest were large and some distance apart. The nest itself differed not from other nests of this species. It was gray in color and shallow, saucer- shaped in form. From so far away I could not examine its material but it looked fine, At 1:47 P. . the female came to the nest with material in her mouth. This she deposited and left. At 1:55 the male came into the tree but seeing me flew out again with much twitching of the tail and calling. In ten minutes he re- turned, darted out again, immediately returned and took the nest. For twenty- 'five minutes he brooded, then left, returning in four minutes. For ten minutes more he sat quietly, then suddenly left the tree giving his harsh "scrat" call and twitching his tail. Presently I heard him singing in a nearby tree. At 2:55, just an hour from the time he had taken the tree, he drove another Phainopepla away. At about the same time the female came to a neighboring tree,. and the male flew away. It seemed evident that this pair, like all the other Phainopeplas .that I have watched nesting, always guarded the tree. One left', only, when his, or her, mate was near by. The next morning when I visited the nest shortly after ten o'clock the male was brooding. At 10:16 he took a turn in the air and returned. His actions plainly showed'that my presence disturbed him. There was no place where I could see the nest and be entirely obscured. In his shyness he differed from the male I had watched in the pepper tree the year before. This male was quite fearless, the female being the shy one. I found in my watching at this nest that the female was much less shy than her mate. In the afternoon of this same day when I visited' the nest at 4:30 I found the male there. I began to wonder if he were to do all the brooding. At 4:56 the female came and took the nest, the first time I had seen her do so. On the 26th of the month, seven days after brooding had commenced, I saw the female bring a long piece of stringy gray material and place it in the nest. Later when I learned that Mrs. Olive Thorne Miller had hung southern moss out in her yard near by, I made up my mind that that was what the bird had. In one nest that I watched last year the birds added material after brooding was well com- menced. Seemingly this is a custom of these birds. I find in my note book for May 29th, ten days after I first discovered the nest, the following record: 3:23 P. L, female on nest, did not fly when I came; 3:30, femaleleft nest; 3:34, male took nest, is very shy; 4:02, male left nest, gave call; 4:03, male came back; 4:30, female flew over tree and male left; 4:31, male came back, then left again; 4:33, male took nest; 4:48, female catching insects nearby; male left nest with low call; 4:50, female took nest. When the male was not brooding he spent much time in singing. It was not