Comparative Breeding Behavior of Ammospiza caudacuta and A. maritimaWoolfenden, Glen Everett
Science
Comparative Breeding Behavior of Ammospiza caudacuta and A. maritima
Woolfenden, Glen Everett
Sparrows
I suspect that male Sharp-tailed Sparrows do not even know where nests
are. On July 18 at 7:00 a.m. I was watching a nest from a nearby blind
when an unbanded male (I saw the individual sing later) appeared. As
the bird foraged through the black grass, it headed directly toward the
nest. When the male was almost one foot from the nest the incubating
female left. She ran from the tussock and flew a short distance away to
a cattail stem. From here she watched the male, which seemingly
oblivious continued foraging, coming within inches of the nest. As the
male walked away from the nest the female returned. At 8:00 p.m. the
same day I was in the blind again. The female was out searching for
food when a different, banded male appeared. In his foraging, the male
walked up on the grass stems over the nest. The male apparently saw the
young (two had hatched on July 17 and one on July 18) for he turned his
head and seemed to peer down under the stems. The female appeared (with
food) as he was doing this; she flew directly toward him and he flew
away. The male was not seen near the nest in later observations.
On July 1 (6:50 a.m.) I was in a blind near another nest as the female
approached with food for the young. At this moment a male appeared and
the female immediately flew away. The male perched on a tussock within
two feet of the nest, sang, and then flew off. The female reappeared in
a few seconds without the food. She searched through a clump of black
grass four feet from the nest, caught a small, pale green insect, fed
it to her one young (there were also two eggs in the nest) and began
brooding.
VOICE
_Song_
Only males of the two species sing. The normal song of the Seaside
Sparrow lasts just under two seconds, the buzzing final note
constituting three-quarters of the song. Saunders (1951:257-258)
describes this song as short, and buzzlike, beginning with two or three
short, rather faint notes and ending in a trill at first loud but
fading away toward the end. The introductory notes are followed by a
higher-pitched, loud, strongly accented, but buzzy note. This note is
usually higher than the final trill and connected with it. The song has
been written as _tup tup ZEE reeeeeeeeee_ and _tup TEE tle reeeeeeeeeee_
(Saunders, 1951:257), _cutcut_, _zhé-eeeeeeeee_ (Peterson, 1947:232)
and _che-zheéeege_, _che-zhée_, _che-wéege_, _chur-zhée_ and
_too-szheée_ (Stone, 1937:910). My field notes contain the following:
_CHUR-er eeeee_, _CHUR eeeeee_ and _oka-CHE weeeee_. These variations
in the phonetic representation of the songs are attributable mostly to
the birds. Not only is there variation among individuals, but also
individuals vary their songs. Birds that I heard giving a characteristic
song suddenly sang a different type for awhile, and then reverted to
the original. The bill is elevated and opens considerably with each
note; the head bobs with the loud note. Typical singing postures are
shown by Tomkins (1941: pl. 3).
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account