Image from the Biodiversity Heritage Library.
Contributed by Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, University of California, Berkeley.
| www.biodiversitylibrary.org
Transcription
enough to go.
I went to the house to telephone and returned to the nest.
One bird was in it. I was almost certain that it was Brown Eyes;
but while checking up to make absolutely certain, up came that bird
and sat on the edge of the nest. I am experiencing considerable
difficulty in keeping track of these birds in my effort to deter-
mine , in the event of eggs being laid, which one is the author,
and I am quite prepared to discover that I have the sexes reversed.
At about 11 6'clock as I came up the street in my car, both
birds were out by the sidewalk about 100 feet from the nest, 30
feet lower, and separated from it by the fence and the thicket on
the high bank. I drove in, parked the car as quickly as I could and
hurried to get a peak into the nest before the owners arrived. I
found them on the ground below the nest, apparently waiting for me (!)
very friendly and anxious for food. There was nothing in the nest.
I returned about 10 feet to the point where I had just fed the
birds about 1 minute before. There was only one bird there, doing
an agonizing sun-fit, so ruffled up and lopsided as to resemble
nothing within reason. A glance toward the nest revealed the other
one in it. To see which one it was, I restored the sun-fitter to nor-
mal form and dimensions by administering a worm. It proved to be
Green-eyes, hence, by irrefutable logic, B.E. was in the nest, or o
ought to be. But she was not--she was coming to partake of the
banquet. These Jacks-in-the-boxes may know which is which, but I
don't.
March 7th.
At 7:45 A.M. there was nothing in the nest. Both birds were
down on the bank outside the fence. They climbed over, one taking
food from one hand and the other from the other. A little later
one bird was on the nest. It came down when called and proved to