Part 31

These Nuthatches must delight in work. They will spend a week in laborious excavation, and then abandon the claim for no apparent reason. Perhaps it is an outcropping of that same instinct of restlessness which makes Wrens build “decoy” nests. One such finished nest we found to be shaped not unlike a nursing bottle, a bottle with a bent neck. The entrance was one and three-eighths inches across, the cavity three inches wide, one and a half deep, and eight long (keeping in mind the analogy of the bottle resting on its flat side).

The birds do not always nest at ungetatable heights. A nest taken near Tacoma on the 8th of June, 1906, was found at a height of only seven feet in a small fir stump. The wood was very rotten, and the eggs rested only four inches below the entrance. The nest-lining in this instance was a heavy mat an inch in thickness, and was composed of vegetable matter—wood fiber, soft grasses, etc.—without hair of any sort, as would surely have been the case with that of a Chestnut-backed Chickadee, for which it was at first taken.

The Nuthatches appear to leave their eggs during the warmer hours of the day, and one must await the return of the truant owners if he would be sure of identification. One mark, but not infallible, is the presence of pitch, smeared all around and especially below the nesting hole. The use of this is not quite certain, but Mr. Bowles’s hazard is a good one; viz., that it serves to ward off the ants, which are often a pest to hole-nesting birds. These ants not only annoy the sitting bird, who is presumably able to defend herself, but they sometimes destroy unguarded eggs, or young birds.

No. 113. PYGMY NUTHATCH.

A. O. U. No. 730. Sitta pygmæa Vigors.

Synonym.—California Nuthatch (early name).

Description.—_Adults_: Crown, nape, and sides of head to below eye grayish olive or olive-brown, a buffy white spot on hind-neck (nearly concealed in fresh plumage); lores and region behind eye (bounding the olive) blackish; remaining upperparts plumbeous, browning (brownish slate) on flight feathers, etc., becoming black on rectrices (except central pair); longer primaries usually with some edging of white; central pair of tail-feathers with elongated white spot; two outer pairs crossed obliquely with white, and the three outer tipped with slate; underparts sordid white, smoky brown, or even ferruginous, clearest (nearly white) on chin and cheeks; sides, flanks, and crissum washed with color of back; bill plumbeous, lightening below; feet plumbeous; iris black. _Young:_ Like adults but crown and hind-neck nearly color of back; sides and flanks washed with brownish. Length 4.00 (101.6) or less; wing 2.56 (65); tail 1.34 (34); bill .56 (14.2); tarsus .59 (15).

Recognition Marks.—Pygmy size; top of head olive brown contrasting with plumbeous of back; gregarious habits.

Nesting.—_Nest_: a hole in dead top of pine tree, excavated by birds, smeared about entrance with pitch, and lined with soft substances, grass, hair, and feathers. _Eggs_: 5-8, pure white, flecked more or less heavily with reddish brown. Av. size, .61 × .54 (15.5 × 13.7). _Season_: May 1-20; one brood.

General Range.—Western United States from New Mexico, Colorado, and Montana to southern California, Washington, and eastern British Columbia; southward in Mexico to Mount Orizaba.

Range in Washington.—Resident in northern and eastern portions of the State east of the Cascade Mountains. Nearly confined to pine timber.

Authorities.—Baird, Rep. Pac. R. R. Surv. IX. pt. II. 1858, p. 378. C&S. D¹. J.

Specimens.—Prov. C.

As for the Pygmy, the pine tree is his home. It is not quite proper, however, to speak of this Nuthatch in the singular. Lilliputians must hunt in troops and make up in numbers what they lack in strength. Pygmy Nuthatches are not merely sociable; they are almost gregarious. Where a company of Kinglets would be content to straggle thru a dozen trees, a pack of Pygmies prefers to assemble in one. Yet there is no flock impulse here, as with Siskins. Each little elf is his own master, and a company of them is more like a crowd of merry schoolboys than anything else. It’s “come on fellers,” when one of the boys tires of a given tree, and sets out for another. The rest follow at leisure but are soon reassembled, and there is much jolly chatter with some good-natured scuffling, as the confederated mischiefs swarm over the new field of opportunity.

Nuthatches are not methodical, like Creepers, in their search for insects,—they are haphazard and happy. The branches are more attractive to them than the tree bole, and the dead top of the tree is most alluring of all. The Pygmies are never too busy to talk. The more they find the more excited their chatter grows, pretty lispings and chirpings quite too dainty for our dull ears. It makes us sigh to watch their happiness, and we go off muttering, “We, too, were young.”

Again, it shocks us when we find these youngsters in knickerbockers and braids paired off for nesting time. Tut, tut! children, so eager to taste life’s heavier joys? A nest is chiselled out with infinite labor on the part of these tiny beaks, in the dead portion of some pine tree. The cavity is from four to twelve inches in depth, with an entrance a trifle over an inch in diameter. The owners share the taste of the Chickadees, and prepare an elaborate layette of soft vegetable fibers, fur, hair, and feathers, in which the eggs are sometimes quite smothered.

The parents are as proud as peacocks, and well they may be, of their six or eight oval treasures, crystal white, with rufous frecklings, lavish or scant. When the babies are hatched, the mother goes in and out fearlessly under your very nose; and you feel such an interest in the little family that you pluck instinctively—but alas! with what futility—at the fastenings of your purse.

_Certhiidæ_—The Creepers

No. 114. SIERRA CREEPER.

A. O. U. No. 726 d. Certhia familiaris zelotes Osgood.

Synonym.—California Creeper (Ridgway).

Description.—_Adults_: Above rusty brown, broadly and loosely streaked with ashy white; more finely and narrowly streaked on crown; rump bright russet; wing-quills crossed by two whitish bars, one on both webs near base, the other on outer webs alone; greater coverts, secondaries and tertials tipped with whitish or grayish buff; a narrow superciliary stripe dull whitish or brownish gray; underparts sordid white or pale buffy, tinged on sides and flanks with stronger buffy. Bill slender, decurved, brownish black above paler below; feet and legs brown; iris dark brown. Length of adult male about 5.50 (139.7); wing 2.50 (63.5); tail 2.39 (60.8); bill .63 (16); tarsus .59 (15). Female a little smaller.

Recognition Marks.—Warbler size; singularly variegated in modest colors above; the only _brown_ creeper in its range. Lighter colored than the next.

Nesting.—_Nest_: of twigs, bark-strips, moss, plant-down, etc., crowded behind a warping scale of bark whether of cedar, pine or fir. _Eggs_: usually 5 or 6, sometimes 7 or 8, white or creamy white speckled and spotted with cinnamon brown or hazel, chiefly in wreath about larger end. Av. Size .61 × .47 (15.5 × 11.9).

General Range.—The Cascade-Sierra mountain system from Mt. Whitney north to central British Columbia, east to Idaho; displaced by succeeding form on Pacific Coast slope save from Marin County, California, southward.

Range in Washington.—Resident in the Cascade Mountains, east in coniferous timber to Idaho where intergrading with _C. f. montana_.

Authorities.—? _Certhia familiaris montana_ Johnson (Roswell H.), Condor, Vol. VIII., Jan. 1906, p. 27.

Specimens.—U. of W. B.

People are always remonstrating with the bird-man for the assertion that birds are to be found everywhere if you but know them. Especially do they talk of the great silent forests on the western slopes of the Cascade Mountains, where they have traveled for forty miles at a stretch without seeing or hearing a living thing. Well; you cannot show me a square mile of woodland in all that area where at least the following species of birds may not be found: Western Winter Wren, Western Golden-crowned Kinglet, Western Flycatcher, Varied Thrush and California Creeper[46]; and these, except the Flycatcher, at any season of the year. Silent birds they are for the most part, but each gives vent to a characteristic cry by which it may be known.

The Creeper is, par excellence, the bird of the forest. To him alone the very bigness of the trees is of the greatest service; for his specialty is bark, and the more bark there is the harder is this little atom to distinguish. Not only does he inhabit the deeper forests of the Cascade ranges and foothills, but his domain stretches eastward across the northern tier of pine-clad counties, and he is common among the tamaracks on the banks of the Pend d’Oreille.

In June, in the Stehekin Valley of Chelan County, we found these Creepers leading about troops of fully grown young. A recently occupied nest was disclosed to us by a few twigs sticking out from behind a curled-up bark scale of a fire-killed tree, near the Cascade trail. The twigs proved to be eighteen inches below the top of the nest proper, which was thus about twelve feet from the ground. The intervening space was filled in loosely with twigs, bark-strips, moss, cotton, and every other sort of woodsy loot. The mass was topped by a crescent-shaped cushion over an inch in thickness, deeply hollowed in the center, six inches from horn to horn, and four and a half from bole to bark; and this cushion was composed entirely of soft inner bark-strips and a vegetable fiber resembling flax in quality—altogether a splendid creation.

No. 115. TAWNY CREEPER.

A. O. U. No. 726 c. Certhia familiaris occidentalis Ridgway.

Synonym.—Californian Creeper (A. O. U.).

Description.—“Similar to _C. f. zelotes_ but browner and more suffused with buffy above; wing markings more pronouncedly buff; underparts more buffy” (Ridgway). Length of male: wing 2.44 (61.9); tail 2.41 (61.2); bill .60 (15.2); tarsus .61 (15.5).

Recognition Marks.—As in preceding; darker.

Nesting.—_Nest_: as in preceding; placed behind sprung bark scale usually at moderate heights, 3-20 feet up (one record of 60). Inner diameter of one nest 1¾ inches, depth 2½. _Eggs_: 5 or 6, as in _C. f. zelotes_. Av. size .58 × .47 (14.7 × 11.9). Season: May, June; two broods.

General Range.—Pacific Coast district from Northern California to Sitka.

Range in Washington.—Resident thruout the West-side from tidewater up.

Authorities.—? _Certhia familiaris_ Orn. Com. Journ. Ac. Nat. Sci. Phila., VII. 1837, 193 (Columbia River). _Certhia americana_ Baird, Rep. Pac. R. R. Surv., IX. 1858, p. 372, part. (T). C&S. L¹. Rh. Ra. B. E.

Specimens.—U. of W. Prov. BN.

To one who loves birds with an all inclusive passion—such as the undecided bachelor is wont to confess for the fair sex—the temptation to use superlatives upon each successive species as it is brought under review is very strong. But here perhaps we may be pardoned for relaxing our attention, or, it may be, for being caught in the act of stifling a little yawn. Certhia is a prosy drab, and all the beauty she possesses is in the eyes of her little hubby—dear, devoted creature.

This clerkling (hubby, of course, I mean) was brought into the world behind a bit of bark. His first steps, or creeps, were taken along the bark of the home tree. When the little wings got stronger and when the little claws had carried him up to the top of tree number One, he fluttered and spilled thru the air until he pulled up somehow, with heart beating fiercely, at the base and _on the bark_ of tree number Two. Since then he has climbed an almost infinity of trees (but I dare say he has kept count). Summers and winters have gone over his head, but never a waking hour in which he has not climbed and tumbled in this worse than Sysiphæan task of gleaning nits and eggs and grubs from the never-ending bark. Why, it gets upon the nerves! I pray you think, has not this animate brown spot traveled more relative miles of ridgy brown bark in his wee lifetime than ever mariner on billowy sea! Work, work, work! With the industry of an Oriental he seeks to shame the rollicking caprice of Chickadee, and to be a “living example” to such spendthrifts as Goldikins, the Kinglet.

But wait! I am not sure. _Could_ anyone live in these majestic forests, could anyone breathe this incense of perpetual balsam, could anyone mount triumphantly these aspiring tree-boles, way, way up into the blue, without growing the soul of a poet? Hark! “_Tew, tewy, tewy, Piñg, tewy_,”—an angel ditty lisped in the tree-tops where the tender green fir fronds melt into the sky—some Warbler, I guess; the Hermit, perhaps, rounding out his unsaid devotions. And again, “_^kee ^kus ^wit ^it ^tee ^swee_” like a garland of song caught up at either end and made fast to the ether. No! Would you believe it! It is our prosy clerkling! He has turned fay, and goes carolling about his task as blithely as a bejewelled _artiste_ with nothing to do. Love? Yes; love of the woods, for it is the middle of September.

All of which leads me to apologize for the rude epithets previously used; for one who can sing belongs to the immortals; and never again will we judge a brother harshly, for who knows the vaulting heart of the seeming plodder!

The ordinary, working note of the Tawny Creeper is a faint _tsip_, and this is varied from time to time by a longer double note, _tsue tsee_ (of a resonant quality which cannot be made to appear in the transcript). This latter it is which one can never quite certainly distinguish from that of the Western Golden-crowned Kinglet. The full song is, indeed, very sweet and dainty, with a bit of a plaintive quality, which serves to distinguish it from the utterances of the Wood Warblers, once you are accustomed.

A knowledge of the Creeper’s nesting habits would be quite unattainable were the bird to choose the tree-tops; but with characteristic humility it seeks the lower levels at the nesting season, so that one need not look much above his head in searching for its nest.

The first one found was at the edge of the forest overlooking a woodland road near Tacoma. We came upon a pair of the birds gleaning from the neighboring trees and calling encouragement to each other as they proceeded. We were not long in divining their local attachments; and finally, after several feints, the mother bird flew to an isolated tree at the very edge of the woods, where investigation disclosed a piece of bark warped and sprung by fire, behind which six callow babies rested on a soft cushion of moss, hair and bark-fiber, supported by twigs criss-crossed and interwoven, to take up all available space below.

This looked easy; but the most diligent search the following season served only to discover the records of past years and hopeful prospects. Bark scales of just the right dimensions do not abound, and those which do look good prove to be either too infirm or else to have received the scant compliment of a few criss-crossed sticks which mean, “We would have built here, if we had not liked some other place better.”

Not until May 5th, 1907, did Mr. Bowles discover the first eggs, five speckled beauties.

_Troglodytidæ_—The Wrens

No. 116. WESTERN MARSH WREN.

A. O. U. No. 725 c. Telmatodytes palustris plesius (Oberholser).

Synonym.—Interior Marsh Wren.

Description.—_Adult_: Crown blackish; forehead light brown centrally,—color sometimes spreading superficially over entire crown; hind neck and scapulars light brown (raw umber, nearly); rump warm russet; a triangular patch on back blackish, with prominent white stripes and some admixture of russet; wings and tail fuscous or blackish on inner webs, brown with black bars on exposed surfaces; upper and under tail-coverts usually and more or less distinctly barred with dusky; sides of head whitish before, plain brown or punctate behind; a white superciliary line; underparts white, tinged with ochraceous buff across breast, and with pale brown or isabella color on sides, flanks, and crissum; bill and feet as usual. Length 4.50-5.75 (114.3-146); av. of ten males: wing 2.12 (54); tail 1.82 (46.4); bill .56 (14.2); tarsus .79 (20.1).

Recognition Marks.—Warbler size; brown and black pattern of back with white stripes distinctive; white superciliary stripe and long bill distinctive in haunts. Strictly confined to bulrushes and long grass of marshes. Lighter and larger than _T. p. paludicola_.

Nesting.—_Nest_: a ball of reeds and grasses, chinked and lined with cat-tail down, with entrance in side, and suspended in growing cat-tails, bulrushes or bushes. _Eggs_: 5-7, so heavily speckled with olive brown or sepia as to appear almost uniform brown. Av. size, .65 × .52 (16.5 × 13.2). _Season_: May, July; two broods.

General Range.—Western United States and southern British Columbia between the Rocky Mountains and the Cascade-Sierra Range, breeding from New Mexico northward; south during migrations to Cape district of Lower California and Western Mexico.

Range in Washington.—Summer resident in all suitable localities east of the Cascades.

Authorities.—_Telmatodytes palustris paludicola_ Brewster, B. N. O. C. VII 1882, 227 (Ft. Walla Walla). D². Ss¹. J.

Specimens.—C. P.

“To the Coots and Rails belong the ooze-infesting morsels of the swamp, but all the little crawling things which venture into the upper story of the waving cat-tail forest, belong to the Long-billed Marsh Wren. Somewhat less cautious than the waterfowl, he is the presiding genius of flowing acres, which often have no other interest for the ornithologist. There are only two occasions when the Marsh Wren voluntarily leaves the shelter of the cat-tails or of the closely related marshables. One of these is when he is driven South by the migrating instinct. Then he may be seen skulking about the borders of the streams, sheltering in the weeds or clambering about the drift. The other time is in the spring, when the male shoots up into the air a few feet above the reeds, like a ball from a Roman candle, and sputters all the way, only to drop back, extinguished, into the reeds again. This is a part of the tactics of his courting season, when, if ever, a body may be allowed a little liberty. For the rest, he clings sidewise to the cat-tail stems or sprawls in midair, reaching, rather than flying from one stem to another. His tail is cocked up and his head thrown back, so that, on those few occasions when he is seen, he does not get credit for being as large as he really is” (The Birds of Ohio).

Since his sphere of activity is so limited, we may proceed at once to the main interest, that of nest-building. And this is precisely as the Marsh Wren would have it, else why does he spend the livelong day making extra nests, which are of no possible use to anyone, save as examples of Telmatodytine architecture? It is possible that the female is coquettish, and requires these many mansions as evidence that the ardent swain will be able to support her becomingly after marriage. Or, it may be, that the suitor delights to afford his lady love a wide range of choice in the matter of homes, and seeks thus to drive her to the inevitable conclusion that there is only one home-maker for her. However this may be, it is certain that one sometimes finds a considerable group of nest-balls, each of apparent suitability, before any are occupied.

On the other hand, the male continues his harmless activities long after his mate has selected one of his early efforts and deposited her eggs; so that the oölogist may have to sample a dozen “cock’s nests,” or decoys, before the right one is found. Some empty nests may be perfectly finished, but others are apt to lack the soft lining; while still others, not having received the close-pressed interstitial filling, will be sodden from the last rains.

The Marsh Wren’s nest is a compact ball of vegetable materials, lashed midway of cat-tails or bulrushes, living or dead, and having a neat entrance hole in one side. A considerable variety of materials is used in construction, but in any given nest only one textile substance will preponderate. Dead cat-tail leaves may be employed, in which case the numerous loopholes will be filled with matted down from the same plant. Fine dry grasses may be utilized, and these so closely woven as practically to exclude the rain. On Moses Lake, where rankly growing bulrushes predominate in the nesting areas, spirogyra is the material most largely used. This, the familiar, scum-like plant which masses under water in quiet places, is plucked out by the venturesome birds in great wet hanks and plastered about the nest until the required thickness is attained. While wet, the substance matches its surroundings admirably, but as it dries out it shrinks considerably and fades to a sickly light green, or greenish gray, which advertises itself among the obstinately green bulrushes. Where this fashion prevails, one finds it possible to pick out immediately the oldest member of the group, and it is more than likely to prove the occupied nest.

The nest-linings are of the softest cat-tail down, feathers of wild fowl, or dried spirogyra teased to a point of enduring fluffiness. It appears, also, that the Wrens often cover their eggs upon leaving the nest. Thus, in one we found on the 17th of May, which contained seven eggs, the eggs were completely buried under a loose blanket of soft vegetable fibers. The nest was by no means deserted, for the eggs were warm and the mother bird very solicitous, insomuch that she repeatedly ventured within a foot of my hand while I was engaged with the nest.

The Marsh Wrens regard themselves as the rightful owners of the reedy fastnesses which they occupy, and are evidently jealous of avian, as well as human, intruders. In one instance a Wren had constructed a sham nest hard against a completed structure of the Yellow-headed Blackbird, and to the evident retirement of its owner. Another had built squarely on top of a handsome Blackbird nest of the current season’s construction, and with a spiteful purpose all too evident.

No. 117. TULE WREN.

A. O. U. No. 725 a. Telmatodytes palustris paludicola (Baird).

Synonyms.—Marsh Wren (locally). Western Marsh Wren (now restricted to _T. p. plesius_). California Marsh Wren (inappropriate). Pacific Marsh Wren.

Description.—_Adult_: Similar to _T. p. plesius_, but smaller and with coloration decidedly darker. Length about 4.75 (120.6); wing 1.97 (50); tail 1.73 (44); bill .52 (13.2); tarsus .78 (20).

Recognition Marks.—Pygmy size; brownish coloration; reed-haunting habits and sputtering notes distinctive.