NORTHERN SLATE-COLORED JUNCO 1031 



the early courtship between one of her banded male juncos and a 

 female who appeared 11 days after he arrived in 1953: 



Her behavior indicated plainly that her sexual drive had not yet reached high 

 intensity. She faced him as he pursued her, showing him her breast, or hopped 

 aside or away to evade his approach, thus displaying her urge to escape to the 

 point of aggression. 



The male pursued her doggedlj' with wings drooped and tail lifted. Every 

 time when the female withstood him, he stooped and with great intensity pecked 

 at the ground and at his aluminum band on the right tarsus. 



Obviously, this pecking at the ground and at the aluminum band, both irrele- 

 vant actions in the present situation, were displacement activities, a "substitute 

 behavior" * * * as his sexual drive was denied by the female's condition of 

 unreceptiveness. 



Generally the first one or two days seem to be spent in establishing 

 and strengthening the pair bond. The male follows his mate about 

 as she feeds within the territory and the two birds remain close to- 

 gether, seldom more than 50 feet apart. Both birds, and particularly 

 the male, display by hopping about the other on the ground with the 

 wings drooping and the tail fanned laterally so that the white outer 

 rectrices are conspicuous. The male now sings much less frequently, 

 but he still leaves his mate occasionally to proclaim his occupancy of 

 the property by song from one of his favorite perches. 



Nesting. —The junco's ground nest is built by the female, but the 

 male often helps by bringing material for it. Cordelia J. Stanwood, 

 who studied this species extensively at her home in Ellsworth, Maine, 

 wrote Mr. Bent about the activities of a pair building their nest one 

 wet May "under a mass of brush and leaves and sheltered by a small 

 spruce. Both birds brought some of the damp materials and they 

 appeared to care little how wet they were, but the female seemed to 

 do the greater amount of the molding." She continues: 



"The nest site varies according to its situation. I have seen the 

 juncos brooding amongst the roots of a growing clump of gray birches, 

 partially under stumps and rocks, below a tuft of leaves, in a brush 

 heap shaded by small evergreens, beneath bracken, and many within 

 the side of a bank or knoll. The wall of a knoll covered with bird- 

 wheat moss [Polytrichum] or the side of a steep bank just under the 

 overhanging sod seems to be the most typical site for a junco nest. 

 A depression is made or enlarged in the side of the bank or knoll, 

 and the moss or overhanging sod form a natural roof. On a pasture 

 hillside the abode of the junco may be a little cup-shaped structure 

 of straw in the midst of a blueberry patch; in a damp wood it will be 

 a deeper structure with thick walls of moss, twigs, and hay with a 

 substantial lining of fine hay or hair. The brooding female often 

 draws her tail into the nest as the ovenbird does, so that it is well nigh 



