CHESTNUT-BACKED CHICKADEE.
No. 110.
BUSH-TIT.
A. O. U. No. 743. Psaltriparus minimus (Towns.).
Synonyms.—Least Bush-tit. Puget Sound Bush-tit. Pacific Bush-Tit.
Description.—Adults: Crown and hindneck warm brown abruptly contrasting with dull leaden or mouse gray hue of remaining upperparts; wings and tail slaty edged with pale gray; sides of head like crown but duller and paler; underparts sordid brownish white deepening into dull drab on sides and flanks. Length about 4.00 (101); wing 1.87 (47.5); tail 2.05 (52); bill .26 (6.9); tarsus .62 (15.8).
Recognition Marks.—Pygmy size; leaden coloration with brownish cap unmistakable.
Nesting.—Nest: a pendulous pouch from six inches to a foot in length and three or four inches in diameter, with small entrance hole in side near top; an exquisite fabrication of mosses, plant-down and other soft vegetable substances bound together by cobwebs and ornamented externally with lichens, etc., lined with plant-down and feathers; placed at moderate heights in bushes, rarely from ten to twenty feet up in fir trees. Eggs: 5-8, usually 7, dull white frequently discoloring to pale drab during incubation. Av. size .55 × .40 (13.9 × 10.2). Season: April-July; two or more broods.
General Range.—Pacific Coast district from Lower California to the Fraser River.
Range in Washington.—Resident west of the Cascades at lower levels, rare northerly—perhaps nearly confined to the Puget Sound basin.
Authorities.—Parus minimus, Townsend, Journ. Ac. Nat. Sci. Phila., VII. 1837, 190 (Columbia River). C&S. Ra. Kk. B. E.
Specimens.—U. of W. Prov. B.
It is an age of specialists. The man who could do anything—after a fashion—has given place to the man who can do one thing well. And in this we have but followed Nature’s example. The birds are specialists. The Loon is a diver; the Cormorant a fisher; the Petrel a mariner, and so on until we come to Swallows, who are either masons or mining engineers; and to Catbird and Thrush, who are trained musicians.
The Bush-Tits belong to the builders’ caste. They are specialists in domestic architecture. The little birds not only enjoy their task; they have nest-building on the brain. A beautiful home is more than meat to them. For its successful rearing they are ready to forswear the delights of foreign travel, and to its embellishment they devote every surplus energy, even after the children have come.
Taken in Tacoma. Photo by Dawson and Bowles.
NEST OF THE BUSH-TIT IN SITU.
If there were time it would be interesting to trace the genesis of this architectural passion. Suffice it to say that the Bush-Tit comes of a race of builders. They call him Tit, a name shared in common with all the Chickadees; and Chickadee he is in structure and behavior, in his absolute indifference to position or balance, in his daintiness and sprightliness. Now Chickadees, altho they have lost the art of building, are specialists in nest-lining. (A nest lined with rabbit-fur means as much to a Chickadee as does a seal-skin jacket to you, my lady!) Hence the Chickadee strain is not lost upon our subject. The Tit, further, shows his affinity with the Kinglets in a habit of restlessly flirting the wings; and the Kinglets, as we know, are master builders. But it is to the Wrens that the Bush-Tit owes most of all, and especially to the Tulé Wren, for he has taken the general conception of a completely enclosed nest and worked it out more daintily. This, by the way, is no fanciful comparison, for there is a strong strain of Wren blood in Bush-Tit’s veins.
Nest-building begins on Puget Sound about the middle of March, at a time when the shrubbery is only beginning to leaf. Early nests, like the one in our illustration, may be perfectly exposed. Indeed, the birds appear to be at no pains to effect concealment, but trust to the general protection afforded by the presence of other such masses, the withered panicles of “ocean spray” or spiræa, drooping mosses, and collections of unfallen leaves, in the draperies of the underforest. The pendant pouch is composed chiefly of moss made fast by vegetable fibres and cob-webs, and snugly felted with vegetable downs. The lining is composed sometimes exclusively of white felt, but oftener of plant-down mingled with wool, fur, or feathers.