WOOD THRUSH HI 



carrying the excretal sac away. The adult that happened to be 

 present at the time the sac was expelled attended to the disposal. 



BrackbilTs (1943) calculations showed that the male made two- 

 thirds of the feedings while young were in the nest. The feeding day 

 corresponds roughly to the time between sunrise and sunset. He 

 also states that each bird was fed 47 times per day. However, he 

 found that birds of the second brood were fed every 39 minutes in 

 comparison with 19K minutes for the first brood, which resulted in 

 but 24 feedings per bird per day, or half as many as the first brood 

 received. 



The female birds observed by both Brackbill (1943) and myself 

 seemed to use some care in the type of food given the young. She 

 fed them caterpillars and small insects. If the male brought large or 

 hard-shelled or winged insects she ate the head, wings, and other less 

 easily digested parts before offering the remainder to the young. The 

 female was seen to divide food brought by the male among several 

 young instead of allowing one to have it all. 



Brackbill states that young birds begin to forage for themselves 

 when 20 to 23 days old, although they may beg for food from adults 

 anywhere up to 32 days. 



The adult male birds were usually in the close vicinity of the nest 

 to defend the young. The degree of their attentions varied greatly 

 with the individual bird. There is some indication that the protective 

 instinct is stronger early in the season. In one case the male spent 

 most of the time while the female was off the nest perched above the 

 nest. Other males perched in view of the nest but sometimes as 

 much as 20 feet away. The male at one nest early in July was very 

 inattentive. He did not guard the nest closely, almost never helped 

 in feeding the young. 



During the two days before leaving the nest, the young birds en- 

 gaged in preening their feathers and occasionally beating their wings 

 rapidly. They would also stretch one leg or a wing its full length 

 and at times raise the whole body while standing on and stretching 

 both legs. A few times one was observed to shake the whole body 

 to fluff all the feathers. Sometimes one bird would spend as many 

 as five minutes exercising while the other two in the nest remained 

 quiet. When the one that had been exercising had finished, it 

 would settle down to rest while another would take up the business of 

 exercising. At times all the birds fluffed feathers, preened, and 

 stretched at the same time. In doing so they crowded each other 

 to the edge of the nest so far that a sudden stretching of a wing was 

 necessary to prevent the bird from falling from the nest. Between 

 periods of exercising the young spent a considerable amount of time 

 sleeping. 



