Some Birds in the High Sierra. 



159 



ing her plaintive tsip. Remaining perfectly motionless, 

 not more than ten feet from the nest, I secured a number 

 of photographs, one of them given herewith. She showed 

 no hesitation in returning to the nest while I was there, 

 and I had to flush her twice in order to get a chance to 

 photograph her. Only during the last two feet of her 

 approach to the nest did she try to escape observation by 

 taking cover behind weeds and branches. A thunder- 

 storm was brewing and darkness was falling swiftly as I 

 left the little pine tree that sheltered her home, and I 

 hope she succeeded in raising her gentle brood without 

 further molestation. 



The next day, at Lake Merced, I discovered another 

 nest of Sierra Juncos. It was sunk into a tiny shelf of 

 moss on the side of a rocky declivity. Bunches of alum- 

 root hung their feathery panicles of blossoms over the 

 four fledgelings who could not have emerged from the 

 egg more than a week before our arrival. One forenoon 

 I tucked myself away in a niche under a projecting shelf 

 of rock opposite the nest and awaited developments. I 

 was not more than five feet from the nest and had little 

 room to manipulate my kodak. There I sat motionless 

 for about an hour. Being within plain sight of the birds, 

 it was a long time before they dared to approach. They 

 kept flitting about, anxiously eyeing me to see whether I 

 was dangerous. Sometimes they seemed to make above 

 me as loud a fluttering with their wings as possible to 

 tempt me into a threatening move if I was so minded. 



Solicitude for their young and the domestic instinct 

 to feed them at last overcame their misgivings. All at 

 once Aladame Junco shyly fluttered to the nest, hastily 

 deposited her catch of insects in the nearest bill, and flew 

 away. Soon both came regularly at short intervals, and I 

 was enabled to obtain a number of photographs. The one 

 shown herewith exhibits the female at the edge of the 

 nest just after feeding. Unfortunately, the light was not 

 very strong so that I was unable to stop down sufficiently 

 to obtain sharp definition. 



