COMMON REDPOLL 417 



The birds would take a series of vigorous hops to gain momentum, then plunge 

 and burrow head first until almost out of sight. They fluttered their wings 

 like birds taking a water bath. They would then remain quiet for several minutes, 

 and emerge, flutter their wings, throw snow over themselves with their bills, 

 and hop to another place to repeat the bathing. When a bird came out of a 

 hole, another would dash into it, the first going into another hole or making a new 

 one. About 50 birds kept this up for an hour and left the snow on the roof 

 only after they had honeycombed it with holes. 



Voice. — The difficulty of describing the dry trills and other notes 

 of the redpoll is evident when one looks over the varied syllabifica- 

 tions used by authors to interpret this small finch voice. In a letter 

 to Mr. Bent, Francis H. Allen wrote, "Besides the rattling tshu, tshu, 

 tshu, as Ralph Hoffmann renders the flight-note, this species has a 

 call-note sweet or swee-e-et of a coarser quality than the similar note 

 of the American Goldfinch, louder but not so clear and sweet, while 

 not so husky as that of the Pine Siskin." 



Grinnell (1947) recognized three categories of notes: (1) a repeated 

 chit used in flight and while feeding, (2) a trill which is a flight call, 

 and (3) "a sweeter note, usually a perching call." He adds, "None 

 of the above-mentioned calls seemed to fulfill the function of a song." 

 The chit-chit-chit call, not loud, was most often, but not always, uttered 

 in threes lastmg just under a second. During flight these notes are 

 often uttered while nearing the tops of their goldfinchlike undula- 

 tions. 



The variously wi'itten, interrogatory tree-uh-eee? call betokens 

 annoyance or concern, and, according to Grinnell (1947), "is often 

 uttered by the male when perching preparatory to feeding a nesting 

 female. It is often reiterated at least a dozen times at intervals of 

 about five seconds by both parents when they are anxious." Olive 

 P. Wetherbee (1937) thought that this "call seemed to serve two pm-- 

 poses, those of a danger signal and a call to food. It was uttered 

 with peculiar emphasis when there was a cat about, but was most 

 frequently heard early in the morning while the flock was congre- 

 gating * * * before starting to feed, at which time it was voiced by 

 many members of the flock in a more rollicking manner." 



Though this species has no territorial song, it seemed to me that 

 the excited March flocks at Indian House Lake joined in a veritable 

 songfest. I made note of a juncoHke lay and wrote that the "junco 

 song is very variable, always sweeter than its model, and sometimes 

 elaborated into a near warble: dre-he-he-he-teu-teu-teu, the first part 

 a junco-trill, the last roUing and melodious. My journal describes 

 the voice of fledglings as raspy "catbu'd-like" cries. Austin (1932) 

 describes the notes of fully fledged young as "something like the 

 chee-chee-chee of the old bu'ds' song, but delivered with a sore throat, 

 and not unlike in quafity the mew of the Catbird." 



