TITMICE AND BUSH-TITS: Family Par -idae [437] 



and the third in an old stump. Currier (ms.) reported a nest containing 

 six eggs, "with incubation well underway" from Wasco County, May 18, 

 1931. His notes are as follows: 



In very rotten pine stump and entrance only 18 inches above the ground. Entrance very 

 freshly picked through the bark and irregular in shape. The tunnel was fully 2.0 inches 

 long following around the stump just behind the bark. Nest a felted quilt of rabbit fur. 

 The bird remained on the nest until I touched her with my ringer, drawing back with bill 

 open in a threatening manner. 



Braly took two nests containing seven and six eggs, May x8 and 30, 1930, 

 near Fort Klamath. 



Chestnut-backed Chickadee: 



Penthestes rufescens rufescens (Townsend) 



DESCRIPTION. Adults: "Throat blackish brown; top of head and back of neck hair 

 brown; superciliary black; back, sides, and flanks dark reddish brown; rest of under 

 parts and sides of head white. Young: top of head, back of neck, and throat dark 

 sooty brown; back dull chestnut, tinged with olive; sides ashy, partly washed with 

 brown. Size: Length 4.50-5.00, wing 1.35-2.. 60, tail 2.. 00-1.30." (Bailey) Nest 

 and eggs: Similar to those of other chickadees. 



DISTRIBUTION. General: From Prince William Sound, Alaska, south to central Cali- 

 fornia, east to western Montana and eastern Oregon. In Oregon: Common per- 

 manent resident from Cascades west to coast. Less common but present in Blue 

 Mountain area. 



THE CHESTNUT-BACKED CHICKADEE is the common representative of the 

 family in the coast mountains and in the heavy spruce forests of the 

 coast. It is common but not quite so abundant in the Cascades. In the 

 Willamette Valley, it is often to be found on the fir knolls, but the Oregon 

 Chickadee replaces it in the cottonwood bottoms. Sometimes the two 

 species will be found traveling together, but more often each remains in 

 the type of timber it seems to prefer. The Chestnut-backed Chickadee is 

 common from the Columbia to the California line along the Cascades, 

 preferring the spruce, fir, and lodgepole of the higher areas. Jewett took 

 young birds in Baker County in July 1906 (19090) and an adult, May 14, 

 1907, in the same canyon of the Blue Mountains. The only other eastern 

 Oregon record known to us is a single straggler taken by Jewett in the 

 Warner Valley, November 12., 1933. 



Historically, the species was described by Townsend (1837) from the 

 forests of the Columbia, which has been worked out to mean in this 

 case Fort Vancouver, Washington, although Townsend or some of the 

 other men working out of that post at about that time undoubtedly also 

 found it on the Oregon side, which they frequently visited. Ridgway 

 (1879), more than forty years later, listed the species from the Columbia 

 River; Gadow (1883) recorded it from Upper Klamath Lake; Swallow 



