DICKCISSEL 183 



a few yards from my blind. His favorite perch was a gnarled stump, 

 the highest point near the nest. For 16 minutes, from 5:05 to 5:21 

 a.m., he sang 114 times, an average of 7.1 times per minute. For 

 16 minutes from 9:55 to 10:11 a.m. he sang 122 times, or 7.6 songs 

 per minute. For 16 minutes from 12:00 to 12:16 p.m. there were 

 132 songs at 8.2 per minute. In the last minute the bird uttered 

 15 songs an average of one every 4 seconds the highest count made 

 the entire summer. 



Thus from dawn to noon the rate of repetition does not diminish, 

 but actually increases as the day becomes warmer. When the heat 

 was excessive (above 100° F.) the quality of the song was greatly 

 interfered with by the bird's rapid respiration or panting and the 

 song often became a repetitive tshi]), tship without the prelude or 

 the usual ending. 



The average number of chirps the female uttered when disturbed, 

 taken over similar periods of time, varied from 10 to 50 per minute, 

 depending on her state of excitement. 



Though the dickcissel is not the first to begin the morning song, he 

 is one of the latest singers at night. Even after the glow of sunset is 

 gone I have heard his voice sound above the hoarse calls of the toads 

 and the varied tones of the myriads of singing insects. The only 

 bird note I heard on those prairie fields after the last dickcissel had 

 settled for the night was the shriek of a screech owl awakening from his 

 day nap in the tall hedge across the field. 



During the first or second week of August the clover fields that 

 resounded with dickcissel music in June and July become quiet. By 

 mid-August you may find a number of females still busy feeding and 

 caring for their young, but the males have deserted the nesting haunts 

 to join others at secluded roosts. Here they change their nuptial 

 suit for a new and brighter plumage before their fall migration. 

 Though the birds remain several weeks longer, the male song is now 

 sOenced, and to the casual eye the dickcissels seem to have left their 

 prairie homes. 



The dickcissel is also known to sing during the winter (see Alexander 

 F. Skutch's account on page 186). I have never heard any of our 

 New England winter dickcissel visitants sing, but Mrs. Lydia Gatell, 

 Berlin, Conn., writes that a male dickcissel that remained on her 

 premises from Nov. 22, 1950 to Apr. 6, 1951, sang frequently and 

 with zeal, especially on stormy days. 



Enemies and accidents. — Dickcissel nests on or near to the ground 

 are subject to the usual enemies — weasels, minks, skunks, coons, 

 opossums, and especially semiwild domestic cats. Hawks and owls 

 take their toll. I saw a sharp-shinned hawk capture a female 

 dickcissel as she carried food to her young at a nest near Atwood, 111. 



