142 



BIRDS OF THE ROCKIES 



Yellow-Headed 

 Blackbirds 



youngsters perched, without seeming to feel any dis- 

 comfort from their strained position. And what a 

 racket they made when the parent birds returned from 

 an excursion to distant meadows and lawns, with bill- 

 some tidbits ! They were certainly a hungry lot of 

 bairns. When I waded out into the shallow water 

 / toward their rushy home, the old birds 

 became quite uneasy, circling about above 

 me like the red-wings, and uttering 



harsh blackbird "chack," varied 



intervals by a loud, and not 

 unmusical, chirp. 



You should see the 

 nest of the yellow-head. It is 

 really a fine structure, showing 

 no small amount of artistic skill 

 a plaited cup, looking almost as if it 

 had been woven by human 

 hands, the rushes of the rim 

 V and sides folding the supporting reeds 

 in their loops. Thus the nest and its 

 reedy pillars are firmly bound together. 

 I waded out to a clump of rushes 

 and found one nest with three eggs in 

 its softly felted cup the promise, no 

 doubt, of a belated, or possibly a second, 

 brood. 



There the 



