18 T Hike JVAsU sD YU BL OGN, BUGLE lee 
get into this area in two weeks, due to the swampy condition from recent 
rains. I wished to get a close look at the baby cardinal as he was just the 
age of one I was making a painting of, and I wanted to compare colors and 
markings. As I approached, it moved off into the underbrush north of the 
road. I followed it in for about 15 yards, when I saw a pair of redstarts 
acting very excited in the bushes close by. I thought perhaps they were 
scolding an animal, reptile or mammal, so remained quiet and looked around. 
I could see nothing so I concluded they must be scolding me. While I was 
watching them, I noticed a pair of veerys on the ground nearby acting very 
nervous. I abandoned the watching of the redstarts in favor of the veerys. 
One of them presently moved off to the left and was lost among the ferns 
and undergrowth. The other, which I judged to be the male, kept scolding 
me, moving around in an area of about ten feet, sometimes in the low 
bushes, then on the ground, then among the fern fronds, now quiet, now 
scolding. I moved over toward a stump among the ferns where I could see 
into the surrounding undergrowth a little way. When I moved the female 
again joined the male, hopping nervously about. This is what I wanted, for 
I could now watch her return to the nest. So I sat motionless on the stump 
and watched. After a few minutes the female began moving off through 
the ferns a little way. Three times it returned to the vicinity of the male to 
move nervously about. Then it moved off again, going a little way, then 
stopping, then climbing up on a fern frond or bush to watch me. Finally it 
disappeared in a rotting stump in a clump of dogwood stems, covered over 
by ferns three feet high. As I rose and started toward the stump a sharp 
note from male brought the female out again. I approached the stump 
cautiously, dropped on my hands and knees, and carefully parted the ferns. 
There was the nest in a cavity in the side of the stump about nine inches 
from the ground, surrounded by moss. It was very neatly made of strips 
of bark, weed stems, twigs, strips of the hairy outer coating of fern fronds, 
moss and grasses, lined with fine grasses and fine rootlets. The four eggs 
looked like miniature robin eggs. It surely was a thrill to see my first 
veery nest. 
Not wishing to disturb the birds any further, I went back to look at the 
place where I had seen the redstarts. They were still in the vicinity and in 
ten minutes I located the nest in the upright crotch of a young ash growing 
up through a blackberry tangle, about four feet from the ground, a nicely 
made, deep cup of grapevine bark, fern down, fine grasses, weed stems 
felted together, and lined with plant down, hairs and a few small feathers. 
Three newly-hatched, blind and naked young were in the nest. Both parents 
scolded and protested my presence with vigor. 
The same day I found a northern yellow-throat’s nest along the road 
that comes down from the pines to the open field and meadow where the old 
farm house used to be. The nest was swung between upright stems of last 
year’s goldenrod stalks. There were four fully-feathered young just ready 
to leave the nest. Their plumage was a buffy mustard-yellow, with no 
distinctive markings. 
It was in this same general area that I got a real thrill when I found 
the nest of an orchard oriole. On June 4 I was working in the open meadow 
