Image from the Biodiversity Heritage Library.
Contributed by Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, University of California, Berkeley.
| www.biodiversitylibrary.org
Transcription
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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).