Bird Notes, Part 2, v659
Page 41
Image from the Biodiversity Heritage Library. Contributed by Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, University of California, Berkeley. | www.biodiversitylibrary.org
Transcription
(281) visible from my chair. She made several trips to the same general area about 15 feet from me. There was nothing to indicate that more than one youngster was there. She spent about 15 minutes preening, digging and sunning herself near my feet, occasionally moving into the shade to cool off. At 9:40 the missing Greenie came into the glade from the north with food and went directly into the bushes where Brownie had been taking worms. Brownie watched him intently, without moving for perhaps a minute and then passed out of sight behind me and shortly and for the next 15 minutes (actual timing--approximate) sang softly at frequent intervals. By craning my neck I could see that she was sitting in the top of a small flowering peach 25 feet away. At the end of the period stated she disappeared, but as I was watching Greenie in exactly the opposite direction, I could not tell where she went. Greenie came out of the bushes and took worms from me back into the bushes, apparently to the same spot as before, but there was no way of determining this from my seat. He made five or six trips and then, until about 10:20 repeated Brownie's preening, digging and sunning performance with alternate periods of cooling off. Meanwhile no feeding was being done in my vicinity. About 10:15 Brownie could be heard singing softly again behind me. She came by me and paused near Greenie, who was in the middle of a very thorough sun-fit. Greenie acknowledged her arrival with a few musical vigorously phrases, then both birds went off to dig about 20 feet away on op- posite sides of the glade. This sudden determination to dig in earnest the coincided in time with beginning of repeated calls of a young bird in the bushes and may have been inspired by them. I called Brownie and she ran to me quickly, jumped up to my hand, got a bill full of worms and ran into the bushes, coming out the other side shortly afterwards without them and immediately began a new sun-fit. I looked into tthe bushes as I passed out of the glade and could see one young bird sitting in a coyote bush (Baccharis).