These birds probably nest at any height in the heaviest fir timber; but, because they are relatively so infinitesimal, it is idle to look for the nests except at the lower levels, and in places where the forest area has been reduced to groves and thickets. The boundaries of the prairie country about Centralia and northward afford the best opportunity for nesting, for here the Douglas Spruces attain a height of only a hundred feet or such a matter, and occur in loose open groves which invite inspection. Here, too, the Kinglets may be noted as they flit across from tree to tree, and their movements traced.
The kinglet and queenlet are a devoted pair in nesting time. Whether gathering materials for the nest or hunting for food after the babies are hatched, they work in company as much as possible. They are discovered, it may be a hundred yards from the home tree, gleaning assiduously. After a time one of the birds by a muffled squeak announces a beakful, and suggests a return; the other acquiesces and they set off homeward, the male usually in the lead. It looks as tho tracing would be an easy matter, but the birds stop circumspectly at every tree clump en route, and they are all too easily lost to sight long before the home tree is reached.
Nests may be found at any height from the level of the eyes to fifty feet (higher, no doubt, if one’s eye-sight avails) but always on the under side of a fir limb, and usually where the foliage is naturally dense. The nest ball is a wonderfully compacted affair of moss, both green and gray, interspersed with liverworts, dried grasses, soft weed fibers, and cow-hair. The deep depression of the nest cup scarcely mars the sphericity of the whole, for the edges are brought well in; so much so, in fact, that a containing branch overloaded with foliage upon one side, once tipped half way over without spilling the eggs. The deep cavity is heavily lined with cow-hair and abundant feathers of grouse or domestic fowl. These feathers are placed with their soft ends protruding, and they curl over the entrance in such fashion as almost or quite to conceal the eggs. One would like to particularize at great length, for no fervors of description can overstate the beauties of this Kinglet palace.
Taken near Tacoma. Photo by Bowles and Dawson.
NEST OF WESTERN GOLDEN-CROWNED KINGLET IN FIR BRANCH.
THIS IS THE MOST THAT MAY BE SEEN OF NEST OR CONTENTS FROM ANY ANGLE.
Eggs vary in number from five to nine, seven and eight being the rule. I once took a nest with eleven—one too many at the least, for it had to rest on top of the others. They are not much larger than Hummingbirds’ and are quite as fragile. Mr. Bowles consumed twenty minutes in removing the contents of the big nest to the collecting box without a break. The eggs vary in color from pure white to sordid white and dusky brown. In the last two cases the tint may be due to a profusion of fine brown dots, or to advancement in incubation, the shell being so thin that the progressive stages of the chick’s development are dimly shadowed thru it.
The female Kinglet is a close sitter and will not often leave the nest until the containing branch is sharply tapped. Then, invariably, she drops down a couple of feet and flits sharply sidewise, with manifest intent to deceive the laggard eye. Yet almost immediately she is minded to return, and will do so if there is no further demonstration of hostilities. Re-covering the eggs is not always an easy matter, for the well is deep and the mouth narrow. One dame lighted on the brim of her nest and bowed and scraped and stamped, precisely as a carefully disciplined husband will when he brings muddy boots to the kitchen door. The operation was evidently quite unconnected with hesitation in view of my presence, but in some way was preparatory to her sinking carefully into the feather-lined pit before her. When she first covered the eggs, also, there was a great fuss made in settling, as tho to free her feathers from the engaging edges of the nest. When the bird is well down upon her eggs there is nothing visible but the top of her head and the tip of her tail.
The male bird, meanwhile, is not indifferent. First he bustles up onto the nesting branch and flashes his fiery crest in plain token of anger, but later he is content to squeak disapproval from a position more removed.
While the mother bird is sitting, the male tends her faithfully, but he spends his spare moments, according to Mr. Bowles, in constructing “cock nests,” or decoys, in the neighboring trees. These seem to serve no purpose beyond that of a nervous relief to the impatient father, and are seldom as carefully constructed as the veritable domus.
