WESTERN BIRDS Thrasher 



its attempts as well as the ja-cob, ja-cob, ja-cob of the 

 California Woodpecker, and the call of the Jay. The 

 common call note is a low chuck. 



They are resident birds in most of their range and in 

 southern California nest early, I once found a nest in 

 March which contained one fully feathered young. 

 Joseph Grinnell reports a set of three eggs which he 

 found the fifteenth of December. At this time the male 

 mounts the top of a tall shrub, or some bare branch and 

 there pours forth his sweet song. It seems a little strange 

 to hear this music coming from the long curved bill. It 

 is a song that carries well and often from across the 

 canyon it is wafted on the breeze when the bird is out 

 of sight. 



A few years ago a pair of these birds came into a 

 yard on the outskirts of Los Angeles on the Arroyo Seco 

 bank and built their nest about ten feet from the ground 

 in a buckthorn bush that grew over a trellis close beside 

 the house. This family had for some time kept suet, 

 bread crumbs and water out for the birds, which un- 

 doubtedly accounts for their leaving their usual nesting 

 place and coming to this thickly settled locality. 



It was the twenty-seventh of March when I began 

 watching this nest and the birds had been brooding for 

 fully a week. During the following three weeks I made 

 almost daily trips to the nest and learned many interest- 

 ing things about these Thrashers. 



I learned that both birds brooded the eggs, each stay- 

 ing on the nest until the other one came into the bush, 

 when the brooding bird slipped off quietly and stayed 

 away from ten to twenty-five minutes; that one of the 

 pair quite frequently approached the nest from the 

 ground and ascended from twig to twig as is the way of 

 its eastern cousin; that about the only note given was a 

 low chuck, which both birds used occasionally, the male 

 evidently being too busy to sing. I also found out that 



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