Part 32

Description.—Smaller than Robin. Adult male: Head, neck, back, wings, and tail, black; lesser coverts orange; tertials and greater coverts edged with white; outer tail-feathers tipped with orange or yellow; breast, belly, rump, and upper tail-coverts, bright orange, deepest on breast. Female: Olive-brown above, yellow below; breast somewhat tinged with orange; wings with two noticeable buffy yellow bars; tertials prominently edged with whitish. Immature birds are similar to the female. Eyes dark brown; bill and feet blue-gray. Length: 7½ inches.

Range in Pennsylvania.—An abundant summer resident from latter April to early fall. It is not often seen in the fall as it usually leaves before the middle of September.

Nest.—A deep pouch of plant-fibers, horse-hair, and string, lined with soft materials, swung from the tip of a branch, usually of an elm, maple, or sycamore, 15 to 60 feet from the ground. Eggs: 4 to 6, white, scrawled with blackish, chiefly at larger end.

The male Oriole is one of our most gorgeous birds, with his bright colors and loud, assertive song. In the full-flowered apple trees, the dignified creature crawls about, nipping at buds or snatching up insects. The female builds the nest, and the young call for food incessantly, often attracting attention to it. Some of the Oriole’s call-notes and alarm-notes are exceedingly harsh and grating, calling to mind the tropics, their ancestral home.

RUSTY BLACKBIRD Euphagus carolinus (Müller)

Description.—Smaller than Robin. Adult male in spring: Entire plumage glossy blue-black; bill and feet black; eyes pale yellow. Adult female: Slate color, somewhat glossy above; wings and tail blackish. Adult male in winter: Black, all the feathers edged with buffy brown, the top of the head almost solid brownish. Young birds in their first winter plumage are chiefly responsible for the name of the bird. They are rusty brown, paler on head, richest on back, with slate-colored wings and tail, a dark line through the eye, and pale yellow eyes. Length: 9½ inches.

Range in Pennsylvania.—A fairly common and regular migrant, sometimes abundant, from early or mid-March (sometimes earlier) to early May and from September 10 to November 15. It usually occurs in flocks.

This is our blackest Blackbird in the spring; in the fall it is hardly a black bird at all. Look for this species in swampy situations or along the margins of streams. It likes to walk about on the ground and through water like a sandpiper, and is more terrestrial than the Red-wing. The spring flocks sometimes burst forth into song, and the effect at a distance is that of sleigh-bells—a jangling, jolly chorus. A single male’s efforts hardly merit being called a song. Rusty Blackbirds are grackle-like in actions, and their whitish eyes suggest grackles, but they do not have trough-shaped tails and the tail-feathers are about of equal length.

PURPLE GRACKLE AND BRONZED GRACKLE Quiscalus quiscula rigdgwayi Oberholser and Quiscalus quiscula æneus Ridgway

Other Names.—Blackbird; Crow Blackbird.

Description.—Males larger than Robin, with large tails, distinctly trough-shaped, especially in flight. The male Purple Grackle’s head and neck are brilliant, iridescent blue and violet; the body, which appears blackish at a distance, is glossed with blue, green, plum-color, and bronze, and the back and scapulars, and sometimes the sides, are crossed with iridescent bars. The male Bronzed Grackle’s head is iridescent greenish blue, with little or no violet reflection, and the body is rich, glossy bronze, without iridescent bars. In both these forms the females are similar but duller, and noticeably smaller. The eyes of all are pale yellow. Young birds are dull brown and, when quite young, have grayish eyes which turn to pale yellow as the bird grows older. Length: Male, 12 to 13½ inches.

Range in Pennsylvania.—The Purple Grackle is found east of the Alleghany Mountains; the Bronzed Grackle occurs west of the Alleghanies. In the mountainous sections the forms intermingle to a certain extent. Grackles are abundant summer residents from mid-March to November.

Nest.—A large, amply cupped structure of grasses, weeds, and other materials, sometimes strengthened with mud, usually built in a coniferous tree, in a yard, or on a campus, from 20 to 60 feet from the ground, but also built in willows, in bridges, high buildings, and rarely among cat-tails. Eggs: 3 to 7, pale blue, gray, or whitish, scrawled and blotched with brown, black, and gray.

This is the bird which is everywhere called “Blackbird.” It is a bird of the town, not of the wilds, preferring to nest in parks, cemeteries, and college campuses, among the pines, spruces, or cedars. It eats many cutworms, but does some damage in grain-fields, and in destroying fruit.

Grackles walk sedately about the lawns, their white eyes gleaming with a ghostly brilliance. The call-note is a harsh tschack.

EVENING GROSBEAK Hesperiphona vespertina vespertina (W. Cooper)

Description.—Smaller than Robin; beak very large and heavy. Male: Forehead, line over eye, scapulars, lower back and rump, sides of breast and belly, dull yellow; crown and most of wing brownish black; secondaries and their greater coverts white, a prominent field-mark; rest of plumage olive-brown. Female: Grayish, the back and scapulars faintly washed with olive-yellow; wings, tail, and upper tail-coverts considerably spotted and marked with white; tips of the inner webs of all the tail-feathers, white; bill pale yellowish gray. Length: 8 inches.

Range in Pennsylvania.—A rare and irregular winter visitant, noted chiefly in the northern counties. In Pike and Tioga counties it has been noted with some regularity during the latter part of recent winters. It is usually to be seen in small flocks and it often occurs in towns.

Evening Grosbeaks see so little of man in their wilderness home in the Great Northwest that they are surprisingly unsuspicious when they visit us during the winter. They are sociable, almost always being seen in flocks, and they feed upon seeds of maple and other trees, upon frozen apples, and upon berries which they find, notably those of the mountain ash. Occasionally they visit the leafless shade trees of towns.

PINE GROSBEAK Pinicola enucleator leucura (Müller)

Description.—About the size of a Robin; a small bunch of bristling feathers over the nostrils; bill sparrow-like, but upper mandible somewhat curved like a parrot’s. Adult male: Gray, suffused with soft rose-red, principally on the crown, rump, upper tail-coverts, and breast; wings and tail dark brownish gray, the wings with two prominent white bars. Adult female: Gray, the crown, rump, upper tail-coverts, and breast more or less strongly suffused with yellowish or olive; the wings and tail as in the male. Immature males resemble the adult female, but are brighter. Length: 9 inches.

Range in Pennsylvania.—A rare and irregular winter visitant recorded from many sections of the Commonwealth, but doubtless of most frequent occurrence in the more northerly counties.

The Pine Grosbeak has been well named. So fond is it of coniferous trees and the food it finds among the needles and buds that its bill is frequently covered with resinous substances. In Pennsylvania the bird also eats the berries of mountain ash, sumac, and similar plants. It is sometimes quite unsuspicious, being unacquainted with the ways of man, and will allow the observer to approach very closely. The call-note is a clear, bell-like whistle; its full song is rarely to be heard in this latitude. (See illustration, page 103.)

PURPLE FINCH Carpodacus purpureus purpureus (Gmelin)

Other Name.—Linnet.

Description.—Size and general proportions of English Sparrow; nostrils covered with small, bristly feathers; tail slightly forked. Adult male: Head and breast rosy pink, not purple, some of the feathers with dusky tips, and a darker streak through the eye; back brownish gray, streaked and suffused with rose-color; wings and tail brownish; belly whitish; sides somewhat streaked with brownish. Adult female: Very sparrow-like in appearance, in fact closely resembling a female English Sparrow, but the whitish underparts heavily streaked with dark brown. The immature male is much like the female, and this plumage is held through the first nesting season, the subsequent moult leading into the rose-red plumage of the full adult. Length: A little over 6 inches.

Range in Pennsylvania.—A fairly common and regular migrant throughout, from mid-March to mid-May and from September 15 to October 31. As a summer resident it is found only in the northern and mountainous counties, and it is decidedly local as a nesting bird. It is irregular, though at times common, in winter.

Nest.—A neat structure, with wide, full cup, constructed of plant-stems and fibers, lined with finer materials, placed in a conifer, orchard tree, or sapling at from 20 to 40 feet from the ground. Eggs: 3 to 5, pale blue, wreathed about the larger end with spots and lines of black.