HOARY REDPOLL 403 



per clutch. The range was three to six (1 nest with three eggs, 5 nests 

 with four eggs, 13 nests with five eggs, 1 nest with six eggs). 



Incubation. — Walkinshaw (1948) notes that incubation is apparently 

 by the female alone. Baldwin and Reed (1955) found the incubation 

 time, defined as the interval between the laying and the hatching of 

 the last fertUe egg, to be 11 days. Incubation began following the 

 laying of the second or third egg, the incubative behavior lasting an 

 average of 14.4 days (four nests). Variations in the period were due 

 to differences in promptness of starting incubation and in the number 

 of eggs in the nests. The female did all the incubation and was fed 

 on the nest by the male. 



They also observed that during the period of incubative behavior, 

 the male engaged in courtship feeding of the female, and the female 

 begged food from the male. The incubating female usually became 

 excited and restless a few seconds before the male became visible to 

 the observer. How she became aware of his approach beyond the 

 willow thickets is not known. At one nest, on July 3 (3:15 p.m.), 

 the female on the nest became excited; the male came and fed her 

 several insects; she rose to the edge of the nest to be fed, and as soon 

 as the male finished feeding her and left, she settled down on the 

 eggs again. This response by the female was not evoked by a 

 wandering juvenal redpoll passing close to the nest. 



Young. — Walkinshaw (1948) says: "At a nest found on June 9, 

 three young hatched on June 10 and the fourth on June 11. On 

 June 19, two of these young left the nest when 9 days old; the others 

 remained at least until June 20." His notes seem to indicate that 

 the female did all the brooding of the young and aU the feeding and 

 nest cleaning; once the male fed his mate, however. His table shows 

 that the young increased in weight from 1.3 grams at hatching to 6.5 

 grams at 7 days ; during the same period, the wing increased in length 

 from 5.3 to 20.3 millimeters; the first primaries were in evidence at 

 the end of the first week. 



Baldwin and Reed (1955) found the hatchings at all redpoll nests 

 to occur between June 6 and July 8 in 1953. Hatching occurred 

 at any hour of the day or night. Brooding was by the female only, 

 and the amount of time she spent settled on the nest declined pro- 

 gressively as the days went by. Starting with 85 percent the first 

 day of brooding, the time on the nest decreased to 30 percent on the 

 fourth day, to 27.5 percent on the seventh day, and to 1 percent 

 on the tenth. By this time the nestlings were large, well-fledged, 

 and crowding the nest, and the female ceased brooding. Both 

 parents fed the nestlings throughout the time they stayed in the 

 nest. The female fed the young intensively at first and somewhat 

 less frequently after a few days had elapsed. The male, on the other 



646-737— 68— pt. 1 2S 



