Mar., 1909 
55 
NOTES ON PAR US RUFESCENS IN WESTERN WASHINGTON 
By J. H. BOWLES 
T HE pretty little Chestnut-backed Titmice are resident thruout the year almost 
anywhere that they may be found. Altho nowhere very plentiful, they are 
most abundant on. the west side of the Cascade Range, only a few scattered 
pairs ever appearing on the eastern slope of these mountains. In fact in four 
trips thru the eastern part of the state my only record is of a pair that I found with 
their nest and six eggs a short distance from Lake Chelan, in Chelan County. 
In the vicinity of Tacoma these chickadees may perhaps be found in their 
center of abundance, but even here they are extremely local in their distribution. 
On the east side of the city lies the Puyallup Valley, a fertile river bottom clothed 
with willow and cottonwood and running thru fir-clad hills. To the west of the 
city is the dry, pebbly prairie country, dotted more or less thickly with small and 
large patches of fir timber, with here and there a fresh-water pond or small brook. 
In the former locality I have only a few records for these birds, taken only in 
winter, but in the latter section they may be found in comparative abundance at 
any season of the year. 
In the winter they generally travel in large flocks, seldom associating with the 
Oregon Chickadee (Earns atricapillus occidentalism , but choosing for their com- 
panions the Western Golden-crowned Kinglets ( Regains satrap a olivaceus ) and 
Red-breasted Nuthatches ( Sitta canadensis ). It is not unusual in winter to see 
flocks of a hundred or more of the three species above mentioned, busily searching 
for food thru the dense fir forests. 
At\the approach of the nesting season the Chestnut-backs retire to the most 
arid section of the country to be found, the more exposed it is to the sun the bet- 
ter, and it is only in such locations that one may ever expect to find them during 
the breeding season. The nesting site is chosen about the middle of April, most 
often in the dead stub of some giant fir or oak. On one occasion only have I found 
the nest near water, this being in a small willow on the edge of a swamp. 
The birds almost invariably dig their own hole, but I once found a nest in the 
winter burrow of a Harris Woodpecker. One peculiarity about them, which 
greatly increases the difficulty of finding their nests, is that they almost never start 
the hole for themselves. Instead they select some place where a fragment of the 
wood or bark has been split away, or else they will often take the oval hole made 
by the larva of one of our largest beetles. These holes are not altered at the en- 
trance in any way and, as the dead trees are full of them, it is extremely difficult to 
locate the one containing the nest. 
The habits of these titmice differ in many ways from all others of the genus in 
my experience, but in no feature is this more marked than in what may rightly be 
termed the habit of nesting in colonies. In one locality during the spring of 1908 I 
found no less than seven occupied nests inside a very small area, some not more 
than fifty yards apart. It was in an extremely dry prairie district that extended 
for miles in all directions; but I found no other nests during the entire season altho 
the surrounding country appeared precisely the same. This colony was unusual 
for the reason that all the nests were very near the ground. The lowest being two 
feet up in a tiny fir stub, while the highest was only nine feet up in the stump of 
what was once a majestic oak. 
The highest nest I have ever seen in the vicinity of Tacoma was twenty feet 
from the ground, something very unusual as the average height is not above ten 
