GREEN-BACKED GOLDFINCH 479 



When her brooding was again disturbed on July 29, she flew off the 

 nest in a long, fluttering glide and landed 40 feet away, but she 

 returned immediately to a tree near the nest to call in alarm. 



The female constructs the nest almost entu-ely alone. However, 

 the male shows interest in the site and in the early stages of some 

 nests. A pair worked at early stages of nest building in a valley oak 

 on the morning of May 23, when the nest had a thin base 2 inches 

 wide by 3 inches long. On one trip when the pair returned the male 

 went to the nest first, carrying material, but did not remain. The 

 female came to the nest and worked 2}^ minutes while the male perched 

 near the center of the tree with the material in his beak until she left ; 

 then he brought it to the nest and worked half a minute. Later in 

 the morning he went to the nest for 30 seconds and wove fiber around 

 twigs. Sometimes he flew directly to the nest, sometimes to a branch 

 near it. Once he appeared to climb up to the nest from below, using 

 his bill in parrotlike fashion. 



Most of the material came from nearby trees. The female usually 

 flew directly to the nest from a nearby tree, but if she came from 

 farther away she generally lit in the nest tree and then went to the 

 nest. She generally worked from above or inside the nest, less often 

 from the outside. The male sometimes sang nearby while she worked. 



In 160 minutes that morning the male made 5 trips to the nest and 

 the female made 33. In the afternoon the female resumed work on 

 the nest at about 3:50 p.m., and spent longer periods at it. The male 

 made only one trip and was not seen near the nest after 3:43. He 

 had evidently ceased working, though his mate made 29 more trips to 

 the nest in the next 3 hours. 



On the second day of nest-building, activity was recorded in four 

 periods totaUing 9 hours and 20 minutes. In this time the female 

 made 64 trips to the male's 4. The average interval between her 

 trips was 13 minutes in the early morning, 5 minutes in the late 

 morning, 25 minutes in the afternoon, and 6.8 minutes in the late 

 evening. This nest was destroyed by scrub jays soon after it was 

 completed. 



A female on another nest was alert to everything that went on about 

 her. Whenever a scrub jay called in the vicinity, her head turned 

 sharply in that direction. She seemed aware of the observer's activity, 

 but she was not unduly excited by it. As she covered the nest, she 

 did so with a rapid, cradlelike, sidewise rocking of her body. Every 

 time she stood up she worked quickly with her bill in the bottom of 

 the nest. When she returned to the nest at midday, she called nine 

 times in the tree before she reached the nest. She moved from perch 

 to perch 10 times in the tree before she reached the nest. When the 

 male came to the nest through the top of the tree, he called continually 



