Birds of the RockiesKeyser, Leander S. (Leander Sylvester)
History
Birds of the Rockies
Keyser, Leander S. (Leander Sylvester)
Birds; Birds -- Colorado
My second green-tail's nest was in South Platte Cañon, near a station
called Chaseville, its elevation being about eight thousand five hundred
feet. I was walking along the dusty wagon road winding about the base of
the mountain, when a little bird with a worm in her bill flitted up the
steep bank a short distance and disappeared among the bushes. The tidbit
in her bill gave me a clew to the situation; so I scrambled up the steep
place, and presently espied a nest in a bush, about a foot and a half
from the ground. As had been anticipated, it turned out to be a
green-tailed towhee's domicile, as was proved by the presence and uneasy
chirping of a pair of those birds. While the nest at Breckenridge was
set on the ground, this one was placed on the twigs of thick bushes,
showing that these birds, like their eastern relatives, are fond of
diversity in selecting nesting places.
This nest contained four bantlings, already well fledged. My notes say
that their mouths were yellow-lined, and that the fleshy growths at the
corners of their bills were yellow. Does the lining of the juvenile
green-tail's mouth change from red to yellow as he advances in age? My
notes certainly declare that the nestlings at Breckenridge had
carmine-lined mouths. For the present I cannot settle the question
either affirmatively or negatively.
Here I perpetrated a trick which I have ever since regretted. The
temptation to hold a baby green-tail in my hand and examine it closely
was so strong that, as carefully as I could, I drew one from its grassy
crib and held it in my palm, noting the green tinting already beginning
to show on its wings and back. Its tail was still too stubby to display
the ornamentation that gives the species its popular name. So much was
learned, but at the expense of the little family's peace of mind. As I
held the bantling in my hand, the frightened mamma uttered a series of
pitiful calls that were new to my ears, consisting of two notes in a
low, complaining tone; it was more of an entreaty than a protest.
Afterwards I heard the green-tails also give voice to a fine chirp
almost like that of a chipping sparrow.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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