Image from the Biodiversity Heritage Library.
Contributed by Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, University of California, Berkeley.
| www.biodiversitylibrary.org
Transcription
(189)
Set up camera with same lens and stop, 9'8" at terra cotta saucer of
water. Used from 96' to the end trying to get Brownie in the bath
and both Brownie and Greenie picking up worms at it, with Greenie
begging her for some.
5:00 P.M. A few minutes ago I visited the nest, both parents being
away. The occupants immediately asked for food and as I was giving
it to them, Brownie arrived calmly and watched for a time. She then
settled down [illegible] amongst them so that there were four heads
in line and their backs were all about on the same level blending in
together so that it made one fluffy mass with four bills sticking out
from it. This was new. I assumed that Brownie had deliberately turned
over the feeding operation to me and wanted to take her turn with the
youngsters, so included her in the next round, she being quite agree-
able. I then started another round and when it came Brownie's turn
she seized the wooden "spoon" and tried to throw it away with the
thrasher
regulation side-throw and would have done so if I had not had a good
hold of it. She had every appearance of being angry. I offered her
the tin spoon and she bit it. I then presented my finger and she did
nothing about it. Then I placed the bowl of the tin spoon where she
could reach its contents readily and in about a quarter of a minute
she was eating out of it happily. The foregoing are the facts. I
do not know what the underlying motives were; but when she settled down
amongst the young instead of upon them, it was immediately after they
had been heaving her up into the air by standing up and I noticed that
when two of them stood up again when she occupied the new position
she hooked her bill over their backs in turn and pulled them down into
the nest again. She could not have done this if she had been over
them. I think, therefore, the new position was occupied for the purpose
of better control of the, now, ambitious youngsters, instead
of for the purpose of joining the bread-line. When she tried to throw
away my spoon, I believe it was because in her "opinion", the youngsters