Taken in Rainier National Park. Photo by J. H. Bowles.
A BACHELOR’S PET.
I have never heard the Gray Jay titter more than a soft cooing whee ew repeated at random; but Bendire credits it with a near approach to song[8]; and Mrs. Bailey says of the Jays on Mt. Hood[9]: “Their notes were pleasantly varied. One call was remarkably like the chirp of a robin. Another of the commonest was a weak and rather complaining cry repeated several times. A sharply contrasting one was a pure clear whistle of one note followed by a three-syllabled call something like Ka-wé-ah. The regular rallying cry was still different, a loud and striking two-syllabled ka-whee.”
The eggs of the Gray Jay have not yet been reported from this State, but it is known that the bird builds a very substantial nest of twigs, grasses, plant fibre, and mosses without mud, and that it provides a heavy lining of soft gray mosses for the eggs. The nest is usually well concealed in a fir tree, and may be placed at any height from ten or fifteen feet upward, altho usually at sixty or eighty feet. Only one brood is reared in a season, and family groups hunt together until late in the summer.
Icteridæ—The Troupials
No. 15.
COWBIRD.
A. O. U. No. 495. Molothrus ater (Bodd.).
Synonyms.—Cow Blackbird. Cuckold.
Description.—Adult male: Head and neck wood-, seal-, or coffee-brown (variable); remaining plumage black with metallic greenish or bluish iridescence. Female: Dark grayish brown, showing slight greenish reflections, darkest on wings and tail, lightening on breast and throat. Young in first plumage: Like female but lighter below and more or less streaky; above somewhat mottled by buffy edgings of feathers. The young males present a striking appearance when they are assuming the adult black, on the installment plan, by chunks and blotches. Length 7.50-8.00 (190.5-203.2); wing 4.40 (111.8); tail 3.00-3.40 (76.2-86.4); bill .65 (16.5); tarsus .95-1.10 (24.1-27.9). Female, length, wing, and tail one-half inch less.
Recognition Marks.—Chewink size; brown head and black body of male; brown of female.
Nesting.—The Cowbird invariably deposits her eggs in the nests of other birds. Eggs: 1 or 2, rarely 3 or 4, with a single hostess, white, often faintly tinged with bluish or greenish, evenly speckled with cinnamon, brown or umber. Av. size, .85 × .65 (21.6 × 16.5), but quite variable. Season: April-June.
General Range.—United States from the Atlantic to the Pacific, north into southern British America, south in winter, into Mexico.
Range in Washington.—Of limited but regular occurrence east of the Cascades, increasing; rare or casual in western Washington. Summer resident.
Authorities.—Bendire, Life Histories of N. A. Birds, Vol. II., p. 434. D¹. D². Ss². J. B. E.
Specimens.—C. P.
While I was chatting with my host at milking time (at the head of Lake Chelan in the ante-tourist days), a dun-colored bird with light underparts flew down into the corral, and began foraging as tho to the manor born. One by one the cows sniffed at the stranger and nosed it about, following it up curiously. But the bird only side-stepped or walked unconcernedly ahead. When I returned with the gun, a moment later, I found a calf investigating the newcomer, and it was difficult to separate the creature from bossikin’s nose. The date was August 3rd; the bird proved to be a young male Cowbird in the lightest juvenile phase of plumage, a waif cuckold far from any of his kin, but shifting for himself with the nonchalance which characterizes his worthless kind.
If our hero had lived (and I make no apology for his demise in the first act), he would have exchanged his inconspicuous livery for the rich, iridescent black of the adult; and he would have done this on the installment plan, by chunks and blotches, looking the while like a ragpicker, tricked out in cast-off finery.
In the month of March Cowbirds mingle more or less with other blackbirds in the migrations, but if the main flock halts for refreshments and discussion en route, a group of these rowdies will hunt up some disreputable female of their own kind, and make tipsy and insulting advances to her along some horizontal limb or fence rail. Taking a position about a foot away from the coy drab, the male will make two or three accelerating hops toward her, then stop suddenly, allowing the impulse of motion to tilt him violently forward and throw his tail up perpendicularly, while at the same moment he spews out the disgusting notes which voice his passion.