HOARY REDPOLL 401 



the birds frequently gathered in small groups to feed and move 

 about. On June 12, a flock of 8 to 10 mixed males and females 

 flitted from willow to willow constantly chirping in flight. These 

 birds bounded up and down, ascending to heights of 50 to 75 feet, 

 whence they dropped with folded wings. In late June, while nests 

 were still being completed, male redpoUs flew around a good deal 

 and often gathered into small, noisy aggregations. 



Nesting. — Walkinshaw (1948) notes that the hoary redpoll nests 

 closer to water, often over shallow water, whereas the common 

 redpoll nests in the willows on the higher tundra. He found that 

 five nests of the hoary redpoll averaged 71 cm. above ground (30.5 to 

 99), 48.8 mm. in inside diameter, and 37.0 mm. in depth, while the 

 outside measurements were approximately 104 mm. in diameter and 

 78 mm. in depth. 



A. C. Bent (MS.) found eight probable hoary redpoll nests m little 

 willow patches near Nome, five of the nests in one small patch. 

 Both species of redpolls were represented in nearly equal numbers, 

 as far as he could tell. They were very tame, and he identified 

 them by their colors as they sat on their nests or perched nearby. 

 The nests were all placed in crotches of the willows, from 18 to 36 

 inches above the ground; they were generally in plain sight, but 

 some were partly concealed in the foliage. They were all much 

 ahke in construction, made externally of either scraggly twigs or 

 coarse weed stems, internally of finer grasses, and lined with feathers 

 and white wiUow down. 



A nest in the Bent collection taken by F. Seymour Hersey on the 

 Yukon Delta, June 24, 1914, was placed 3 feet up in a dwarf alder; 

 it was made of coarse weed stems and grass and lined with dark 

 feathers in the bottom of the nest and with white ptarmigan feathers 

 about the rim. 



L. H. Walkinshaw (1948) writes: "Brandt * * * states that the 

 Common Redpoll builds the greater portion of the exterior of its 

 nest with small twigs whereas the Hoary Redpoll uses bronze-tinted 

 grasses interwoven with silvery plant down and threads of bark. 

 This was true in the nests we found [near Bethel, Alaska]." Bent 

 (MS.) found both types of nests near Nome; those with the twig foun- 

 dations probably he thought belonged to the common redpolls and 

 the others to the hoary redpolls, although this was not positively 

 determined. 



In 1952 T. J. Cade and G. B. Shaller (in Kessel, Cade, and Shaller, 

 1953) found a redpoll nest at Etivluk in the Brooks Range on Jmie 12, 

 12 inches off the ground and with one egg. They found 11 more 

 occupied nests between this date and July 15 at various localities 

 along the Colville River. All 12 nests were believed to be those of 



