Taken in Oregon. Photo by Bohlman and Finley.
A TIGHT FIT.
YOUNG OREGON CHICKADEE EMERGING FROM NEST.
Ordinarily, a hole is dug by the birds in a rotten stub at a height of two or three feet. The near presence of water is a prime requisite, and a low swampy woods is the favorite location. Sometimes a deserted nest of a Gairdner Woodpecker may be used; but, on the other hand, excavations may be made in green wood at no little cost of exertion on the part of the midgets. Several nests I have seen in willow and poplar trees, and at a height of fifteen or twenty feet.
Young Chickadees are such cunning little creatures that the temptation to fondle them is sometimes irresistible. The parents may have very decided views as to the propriety of such action, or they may regard you as some benevolent giant whose ways are above suspicion. Not infrequently, if the young are kindly treated, the parent bird will venture upon the hand or shoulder to pursue its necessary offices.
No. 108.
MOUNTAIN CHICKADEE.
A. O. U. No. 738. Penthestes gambeli (Ridgway).
Description.—Adults in spring and summer: Somewhat as in P. atricapillus, head and throat similar but black interrupted by strong white superciliary stripe nearly or quite meeting fellow on forehead; upperparts plain deep ashy gray, or mouse-gray; wings and tail deeper gray with some pale grayish edging; sides of head and neck white; underparts (except throat) dull white more or less washed on sides, flanks, and under tail-coverts with gray. Adults in fall and winter: Upperparts washed with buffy; brownish on sides; some white edging on forehead and superciliary stripe broader. Young birds are duller as to black of head and neck, and have a less distinct superciliary. Length about 5.00 (127); wing 2.75 (70); tail 2.35 (60); bill .40 (10.2); tarsus .70 (18).
Recognition Marks.—Warbler size; much like Oregon Chickadee, but white superciliary distinctive; range higher (on the average) than other species.
Nesting.—Nest: quite as in atricapillus and similarly situated. Eggs: 5-8, pure white, or only faintly marked with reddish brown. Av. size, .60 × .45 (15.2 × 11.4). Season: May; one brood.
General Range.—Mountains of western United States from the Rockies to the Pacific Coast; north to British Columbia (chiefly east of the Cascades); south to northern Lower California.
Range in Washington.—Resident in the mountains and timbered foothills, chiefly east of the (Cascade) divide; casual at Seattle.
Authorities.—[“Mountain Chickadee” Johnson, Rep. Gov. W. T. 1884 (885), p. 22.] [Parus montanus, Gambel, Cooper and Suckley, Rep. Pac. R. R. Surv. XII. 1860, p. 194. “Fort Dalles” (Baird, “Fort Dalles, Oregon”). Not a valid Washington record.] Parus gambeli Lawrence, Auk, Vol. IX. Jan. 1892, p. 47. C&S. L¹. D¹. D². J.
Specimens.—U. of W. Prov. C.
It is either accident or the methodical habit of scrutinizing every passing bird which first reveals to you the Mountain Chickadee. He is quite similar in general appearance and conduct to the foregoing species, altho the white superciliary line does confer a little air of distinction when you look closely. His notes, so far as observed, are not different; and he exhibits the cheerful confiding nature which makes the name of Chickadee beloved.
Gambeli is a bird of the foothills as well as of the mountains, and is confined almost exclusively to the East-side. I have not seen it on Puget Sound; but a dead bird was once brought by one of the school children to Miss A. L. Pollock, of Seattle.
Both of the nests which have come under my observation have been placed in decayed stumps not above three feet from the ground. One, in a wild cherry stub in northern Okanogan County, contained fresh eggs on the 18th day of May. Their color had been pure white, but they were much soiled thru contact with the miscellaneous stuff which made up the lining of the cavity: moss, cow-hair, rabbits’ wool, wild ducks’ down, hawks’ casts, etc. The birds were not especially solicitous, altho once the female flew almost in my face as I was preparing the eggs for the cabinet. And then she sat quietly for several minutes on a twig not above a foot from my eyes.
On Senator Turner’s grounds in Spokane—by permission—we came upon a nestful of well-grown young, on the 5th of June, 1906. The nest was two feet up in a stump, concealed by a clump of second-growth maples, picturesquely nestled at the base of a volcanic knob. Upon first discovery the parent birds both appeared with bills full of larvæ, and scolded daintily. Finally, after several feints, one entered the nesting hole and fed, with our eyes not two feet removed. Photography was impossible because of the subdued light, but it was an unfailing source of interest to see the busy parents hurrying to and fro and bringing incredible quantities of provisions in the shape of moths’ eggs, spiders, wood-boring grubs, and winged creatures of a hundred sorts. Evidently the gardener knew what he was about in sheltering these unpaid assistants. Why, when it comes to horticulture, three pairs of Chickadees are equal to one Scotchman any day.