ALDER FLYCATCHER 205 



These are bushy meadows grown (or growing) up more or less thickly with 

 alders. The lower growth in some places consists of wild roses (Rosa), 

 sweet gale (Myrica gale L.) , and other swamp shrubbery, together with the usual 

 mixed meadow herbage. Mingled with the alders will be young swamp maples 

 and birches and oftentimes scattering white cedars. The whole forms a thick, 

 at times almost choked, expanse of meadow growth. The wild roses in which 

 the Flycatcher is so fond of nesting seem to be almost as much an essential 

 in its summer home as the alders themselves. 



Maurice Brooks writes to me: "As a breeding species in West 

 Virginia, this bird has a rather peculiar distribution. For many 

 years we believed it to be restricted to a few high mountain swamps 

 and accepted this as normal behavior for a northern species. Re- 

 cently Dr. George Miksch Sutton has found the birds breeding in a 

 swamp at low elevation along the Ohio River in Brooke County. 

 From this it would appear that lack of suitable swamps, rather than 

 elevation, may be the restricting factor." 



In Lucas County, Ohio, Louis W. Campbell (1936) found that a 

 group of six or eight pairs had "selected a dry pasture, thickly over- 

 grown with shrubs and small trees, as a nesting ground." The 

 nearest water was a winding creek about half a mile to the southeast. 

 "What grass there is is kept very low by grazing cattle but much 

 of the ground is covered by shrubs and small trees; cock's spur 

 hawthorne (Crataegus Citis-Galli L.), wild crabapple {Mains coro- 

 naria (L.) Mill.), black haw (Viburnum pruni folium L.), hazel nut 

 (Corylus americana Walt.), and prickly ash (Zanthoxylmn ameri- 

 canum Mill.)." A few taller trees were growing in the vicinity, 

 and the herbaceous plants in the area were all indicative of dry soil. 



Furthermore, Charles J. Spiker (1937) says: "All observations I 

 have made on this species in the State of Iowa have taken place in 

 dry, upland pastures, especially where there were rank growths of 

 hazel bushes, wild crab, and hawthorn". And he suggests that such 

 surroundings "may be fairly typical of its haunts farther west." 



Spring. — On its spring migration the alder flycatcher may be seen 

 almost anywhere, in open country, in deciduous woods, or even pine 

 woods, as well as in the swampy thickets. It is one of the later 

 migrants, coming when summer is near at hand, when most of the 

 other birds have come, and when the trees and shrubs are in fresh 

 green leafage. It passes through Massachusetts between the middle 

 of May and the first two weeks of Jime, depending on the weather. 

 Edward H. Forbush (1927) writes: "On some warm still morning in 

 the waning of the Maytime the bird watcher notes here and there 

 in the edge of the woods, on a pasture fence, in a small tree by the 

 bog or even in the orchard, a small flycatcher usually on a rather 

 low perch, sitting quite erect, silent and watchful, occasionally dash- 

 ing out in pursuit of a flying insect or flitting from one point of 



