LINCOLN'S SPARROW 1443 



Sometimes she lit west of the nest site, sometimes east of it. When leaving she 

 flew directly from the nest site or from a foot or so to the east of it. Just after 

 her fourth trip, several cars carrying men to work at the hatchery passed by 

 within inches of her nest and put a temporary stop to her nest building activities. 

 At 7:58 a.m. and 8:02 a.m. she made two more trips with grasses to the nest-site, 

 remaining some time after the second trip. 



As she left the nest at 8:07 a.m., the male, who had been waiting in a cedar by 

 the forest's edge, flew east about thirty feet and intercepted her as she reached 

 the edge. He pounced on her in typical Melospizan style. There was a short 

 skirmish, after which he mounted singing to a bough a few feet overhead while 

 she remained on the ground, saying shurr-shurr, shurr, shurr, shurr (DHS inter- 

 pretation) or ZRRRR, ZRRRR, ZRRRR, ZRRRR, ZRRRR (JMS interpreta- 

 tion). Both male and female of this pair have quite a pronounced centre spot. 

 The male keeps his crest raised much of the time and has pronounced orangy-buff 

 malar stripes. At 8:21 a.m. she made another trip to the nest with bill full of 

 grass, stopping en route to invite copulation on a sloping alder branch about two 

 feet off the ground. The male made three attempts to mount her and mating 

 appeared to be successful on the second and perhaps th rd attempts. As she left 

 the nest after delivering this load, he pounced from a vantage point about ten 

 feet up in a spruce at the forest edge, intercepting her as she flew just above the 

 ground before she reached the woods. More matings, with soft singing on his 

 part and zrrring on her part followed for several minutes, until we left at 8:25 

 upon the approach of two school boys, Scott and Neil Atkinson. Yesterday Scott 

 announced that he thought there must be a "ground sparrow" nest near this 

 corner, where they wait for the school bus. He made a cursory search but stopped 

 when other children appeared for the bus so as not to draw attention to the 

 possibility. 



We returned at 9:30 a.m. She brought nesting material at 9:48 and again at 

 9:59 a.m. We left at 10:40 a.m. One of the pair was seen atop a stump in the 

 territory with two short, thick straws, very unlike the long, flexible pieces she had 

 taken to the nest. After holding them listlessly they were dropped, one at a 

 time. I suspect this was the male bird showing some token interest in the build- 

 ing. Interest in mating continued at a high pitch during this observation period: 

 the female zrrring frequently and the male pouncing and singing quietly, chiefly 

 following these pounces. On the 9:59 trip she flew directly to the nest, an excep- 

 tion to her general rule, in spite of the fact that we were parked directly across 

 the road not more than 15 feet from the nest. The female apparently did all the 

 nest building though the male was ever on hand. 



We did not search for the nest until we were sure it would be com- 

 pleted. We found it with no difficulty on May 31 when it was 

 finished but still empty. It was in a grass clump between the road 

 and the roadside ditch, so close to the road that we could have looked 

 right into it from our parked car had it not been concealed by the 

 over-arching grasses. This nest was about 30 feet from the forest 

 edge. The cover between the road and the forest was very similar 

 to that in which the 1956 nest had been located; grasses, annuals, 

 cut-off shrubs, and small trees. It was somewhat wetter (the ditch 

 was usually partly full of water) and this was reflected in a greater 

 abundance of alder. The first egg was laid on June 1 and the others 



