COMMON REDPOLL 413 



The nestlings are usually fed directly by the female, though she 

 sometimes feeds them by regurgitation. Although Dice (1918b) found 

 no males helping to rear the young, both Walkinshaw (1948) and 

 Grinnell (1943) observed males feeding them occasionally, and found 

 that they also fed the female at the nest. The latter writes, "The 

 female, before accepting the food from the male, opened and shut 

 her biU rapidly several times, and while taking the food, she vibrated 

 her wings continuously. * * * After accepting the food, the female 

 regurgitated and fed the young. In the case of a rosy-breasted male 

 and its mate, one parent would come alone to the nest, feed the 

 brood of five, then fly off; the other parent would come almost 

 immediately afterward and also feed the brood." 



Writing to Mr. Bent from Mountain Village, Alaska, about nest 

 sanitation in this species, Henry C. Kyllingstad says: 'T have seen no 

 evidence of any effort to keep the next clean. Never once have I 

 observed the adult birds carrying off or otherwise disposing of the 

 feces of the young. By the time the young are ready to leave the 

 nest, it and its siuroundings are extremely dirty, all twigs below the 

 nest being white with the excreta. It is very easy to locate nests by 

 this means if one wishes to band fledglings — simply look for a white 

 blotch! I have seen hundreds of nests of these birds and they are all 

 alike." I was not impressed by any lack of sanitation in the Indian 

 House Lake nests I found, and Grinnell (1943) definitely states that 

 the nests "were frequently cleaned by the parent birds, usuaUy im- 

 mediately after feeding the young; the parent sometimes swallowed 

 the excreta, sometimes carried them away." Walkinshaw (1948), 

 too, saw females swallow excreta at the nest. Absence of nest sani- 

 tation, however, is characteristic of most cardueline fuiches. The 

 feces are not voided in a sac, and usuaUy dry up and disintegrate 

 quickly. 



After leaving the nest on the 12th day, the dark, heavily streaked 

 young I found at Indian House Lake associated in small family groups 

 and remained in the protection of the extensive streamside alder- 

 willow thickets for a while. By mid-July, when aU the young were 

 off the nest, their preferred habitat appeared to be the dwarf bhch 

 scrub along the upper edge of timber on the valley slopes. 



Plumages. — Dwight (1900), basmg his description of the juvenal 

 plumage on a single August specimen from Labrador, called it 

 "streaked with sepia and clove-brown above with white edgings; 

 rump paler but also streaked." Wings and tail were clove brown 

 with whitish or buffy edgings, and the coverts, wing bands, and ter- 

 tiaries edged with pale cinnamon. The first winter plumage, he 

 writes, is acquired by a partial post-juvenal molt late in August, in- 

 volving only body plumage and wing coverts; the crown is then duU 



