THE-C?m)?R 



HJ€tS5ett#Y Ol^lXEG^OltOGY- 



Volume XX July- August, 1918 



NOTES ON THE NESTING OF THE RED 



By LEE R. DICE 

 WITH TWO PHOTOS 



NOTES on three nests of the Redpoll (Acanthis linaria linaria) found in the 

 interior of Alaska are here presented as an addition to our knowledge of 

 the breeding habits of this species. These notes were secured by the au- 

 thor while a Deputy Fur Warden in the Alaska Fisheries Service, and they are 

 published with the permission of the United States Bureau of Fisheries. 



During the winter, Redpolls are found in flocks consisting of a few individ- 

 uals up to several hundred, but in the spring the flocks break up and the birds 

 pair off. On the North Fork of the Kuskokwim River, near its head, pairing 

 'began in 1912 during the last week in April, but a flock of fifty was seen as 

 late as May 7. The exact position of this locality is about seventy-five miles 

 almost directly south of Tanana, Alaska, and about eighty miles north and a 

 little west of Mount McKinley. 



In this region the valleys and low hills are largely covered by an open 

 scrubby forest of black spruce, beneath which the ground is heavily carpeted 

 with sphagnum moss. Lakes and small streams are numerous. Along the 

 streams and extending up on southern hillsides are patches of paper birch and 

 white spruce forest, while on the river bars thickets of willow and alder are 

 common. 



The first nest was found May 20, and was apparently completed. The nest 

 was placed about four feet above ground in a willow which was growing at the 

 edge of the river in a fringe of willows and alders. The following day, May 21, 

 two more nests were found, both incomplete. One of these (no. 2) was about 

 three feet from the ground in a small paper birch which was in a partly open 

 place where the paper birch and white spruce forest had been burned off a 

 number of years before. It was about twenty feet from the river, just behind a 

 screen of willows. The other nest (no. 3) was about five feet high in a willow, 



