Wood ;-" ■ ■ '-. -1 'jirU 'j:' ili- ^.r'ii.i'': li'i '11' i|... 11. iiiijiiiM bird is standing i_-omposedly by 



her nest on a dead branch after having fed her one remaining youngster. The nest is a shallow struc- 

 ture ornamented with bits of lichen, a concealing device employed also by the liumming birds and gnat 

 catchers 



Yellow-breasted chat, a strange warbler. — This is the wariest, most timid, and therefore the most 

 difficult to photograph of all our birds. During the breeding season it is often seen to spring from 

 the top of a tree and, with dangling legs, jerking tail, and wings that seem disjointed, to flop through the 

 air like a bird wounded and striving to reach the adjacent tree before falling to the ground. Its notes 

 resemble everything from the clear whistle of a boy calling his dog, to the cry of a startled feline, or the 

 chugging of a motor cycle climbing a hill 



Smallest of our birds, the ruby-thrnit. i , iiimmm Imd. — Here is a glimpse of the humming bird's 

 home life. The young birds have their mouths open and are about to be fed with the nectar and minute 

 insects that the mother bird has brought back in her crop. In feeding she inserts her bill far down into 

 the throat of the young bird and injects the food into its crop. This particular nest, with its concealing 

 lichens, is saddled on the branch of a pitch pine, a rather unusual site 



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