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CASSIN'S PURPLE FINCH

Other common names: Cassin's Finch.

Museum Specimens - Mazama Ridge (6000); Yakima Park (6400).

The Cassin's finch has its ranges somewhat mixed up here in the park. The Check List gives this bird the territory up to and including the eastern slopes of the Cascades. The California purple finch (Carpodacus purpureus californicus) gets the low western side of the mountains. On Rainier, which is west of the Cascade summit, we have the Cassin's finch and no California finches. This, of course, is brought about by the fact that the former is more or less of a mountain bird while the latter seeks only the lowlands.

Cassin's finches are common breeding birds at timberline, being numerous along Mazama Ridge and the country around Yakima Park. They migrate down the eastern slopes of the Cascades in winter. Spring sees them back again on the high ridges - a time when the snow still lingers, when the fog hangs low enough to blanket the treetops and shut out the landscape. Through all this moisture comes their warble, penetrating the fog, with the singer obscured in its hidden balcony. In summer we see many of the plainly colored, immature birds along the alpine ridges.

These birds are larger than the California purple or the rosy finches. The adult male has the crimson crown, rose color on throat fading to white on lower parts. Its back is brown heavily striped with dusky. The female and young male lack the crimson crown and pinkish colors, and are more grayish-brown on the back, the stripes narrower and lighter. Underparts are grayish striped with narrow markings of brown, clearing on lower abdomen.

The nest of twigs and rootlets, with string when obtainable, is placed well out on the limb of a coniferous tree. Three to five eggs, bluish with fine black markings around the larger end, are laid in June, in our altitude.

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HEPBURN'S ROSY FINCH

Other common names: Leucosticte.

Museum Specimens - Burroughs Mountain (7000); Paradise (5400); Colonnades (6800).

Few persons realize the vastness of the ice fields on Mt. Rainier. High above the surrounding country lies this rugged, precipitous region covering some 45 square miles of perpetual ice and snow. Little or nothing can grow on it - a country of whiteness and silence!

And yet each spring, while the snow storms still rage, comes a small, rose-colored bird to take possession quietly for the summer and raise its family. Why does it choose such a country when just below: lie the green meadows of Paradise Valley or of Yakima Park? The only answer is that Nature intended it that way.

Rosy finches arrive early and follow the receding snow up the mountain side. By the time patches of bare earth appear at Paradise Valley these birds are busy feeding young. A pair may be seen on one of these bare spots picking seeds and buds of the heather, cramming their throats and bills, then off they go, over a precipice and across a glacier bed to some niche on the perpendicular face of a rock to feed their brood. At other times they may be seen picking up dead bugs and insects lying on the snow - a supply brought to them by Nature's winds and gales. They are confidingly tame birds and show little fear of man.

These finches are sparrow-like birds, preferring the ground or high, sharp rocky edges in place of trees. They have a black crown, the rest of the head being ashy gray that contrasts sharply with the rich, warm brown of the body plumage. There is a tint of pink or rose dusted over the entire bird. Females are paler and their colors are more subdued.

During the nesting season the watcher is completely baffled in trying to trace their nests by the actions of the birds. They may be seen gathering food from some bare spot or along a newly born rill released from the snowfields above, then suddenly away they go in an undulating flight over the snowfield and over the glacier's edge, or around a rocky face to disappear completely. They nest in cracks in the rock, building a nest of grasses. Four or five white eggs are laid. Although the birds are abundant on "The Mountain", few, if any eggs of the Hepburn's rosy finch are found in any museum. The nest is difficult to find and then impossible to reach.

On July 24, 1935, I stood above Mystic Lake watching a pretty scene of four young leucostictes sitting on a bare limb of a gnarled alpine tree and being fed at intervals by the parents. They were well-behaved babies and each awaited its turn when the parent approached with food from the bank of a snow-fed stream nearby. Neither the old bird nor the young paid any attention to the watcher. A family picnic above the clouds!

In the fall these birds gather in large flocks and fly about, over the bare ground and talus slopes, in action much like a flock of black birds over a stubble field. They commence their slow migration down the eastern side of the Cascades, stopping at times for several days in one locality. At night the flock swoops into some sheltered cave or recess, perhaps on a cut bank or sheltering hollow left by the displacement of a boulder. In this the birds will roost, entering en masse, and if weather conditions are good will remain for several nights.

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NORTHERN PINE SISKIN

Museum Specimens - Van Trump Trail (3500); Longmire (2700).

Did you ever attend a bird convention? Did you ever know that birds held a convention? Well, the pine siskins do and I have attended two of them. Both were held in the open fir woods of the Parkland prairies between our park and Tacoma. Here the Douglas fir has room to spread so that the lower limbs can branch out horizontally - an attraction to the siskin at nesting time.

The first of these conventions occurred in 1920 but we got in only at closing time, about April 30. The birds had about gone but the trees were full of empty nests. We were amazed at such findings as in normal years the siskin is not any too common in this section and the birds nest in May, not in March. Every spring after that we watched for another deluge, but not until the seventh year did they return in such numbers.

Well do I remember the afternoon of March 23 - my birthday and a Saturday - so to celebrate I took my first oological walk. In crossing one prairie, and before entering the woods, I could make out a steady, though low, chattering volume of bird notes everywhere - hundreds and hundreds of them. The majority seemed to be young birds, and this was later verified by the empty, used nests. The first one examined contained two young birds and an egg; the next, young birds; then several empty nests. During the afternoon I picked up one or two sets of eggs, but the majority had hatched and were having one grand time in the fir trees.

Needless to say, the news traveled through the ornithologist ranks that night and several of us were out on the prairies early next day. I have not space here to relate all we saw, but the birds surely were there by thousands. We covered perhaps five square miles and every grove entered contained hundreds of birds. A great number of empty nests were found, as well as some that still had young birds, and now and again one with eggs and the bird still incubating. Altogether it was a wonderfully interesting day.

The following Sunday we were out again, but much to our amazement we found the woods empty and silent. The birds had left; the convention was over! Where they went no one knows. What had become of the birds that had eggs? Here we discovered what, to me, was one of the most remarkable stunts ever performed by a living bird. During the day we examined all the nests we found, all empty except for one now and then that was so befouled with excreta that the cup was filled to the brim, and in every such case the unhatched eggs were underneath. When the gathering or convention ended the belated pairs had to leave too. The home was deserted but they, with the help of others, buried and befouled their treasures before leaving. When cleaned and washed not an egg had been broken, and those taken found their way into oological collections.

To sum it all up, these birds congregated, for some unknown reason, to nest in countless numbers in a restricted area. They advanced their breeding dates from May to February, from spring to winter. The nests were hurriedly constructed, frailer and without the regular hair lining. Why were they in such a hurry, and why did they all leave so abruptly? It still remains a mystery. We have records from other localities of these siskin gatherings - one from Pennsylvania as far back as 1867, the description of which is almost identical with ours.

Siskins undoubtedly outnumber any other bird in the park. They breed all through our fir forests up to an including the alpine areas. In the fall we find them in the alders along the river bottoms and though most of them seek the lower country in winter, a few linger inside our boundaries.

In plumage they are anything but conspicuous - just a little canary-like bird with brown stripes over a dull white background. There is a tinge of yellow in spring, and in flight the wings show bars of the same color.

They make a dainty, handsome nest of twigs and rootlets lined with hair of one color. The cup is deep and perfectly round, in which are laid three or four blue eggs with black and brown markings wreathed around the larger end.

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SITKA CROSSBILL

Other common names: Red Crossbill.

Museum Specimens - Longmire (2700).

Small flocks of these strange little birds may be encountered at any time of the year in any section of the wooded areas of the park. They are wanderers the world over and no certain place is their home.

In color we might call this crossbill red with tinges of yellow on the throat. The females and immature birds are more greenish and yellow, and in one flock may be found birds with all three colors so mixed that no two are alike. The distinctive feature is, of course, the crossed bill. Nature has so designed it that the birds can pry open the fir cones and extract the seeds with their tongues. On some birds the lower mandible crosses to the right of the upper, while on others it crosses to the left.

Crossbills are tame, gentle birds and do not mind being watched. In feeding they are born acrobats, hanging upside down as often as maintaining a natural position. It is said they are fond of salt. They also seem to crave a supply of dry earth, perhaps as an aid to digestion as theirs is a sticky diet. On the ground they have a way of placing their heads down sideways and licking up particles of soil.

Like other finches, these birds build on a fir branch a nest of twigs and rootlets lined with such material as grasses or moss. Three or four eggs are laid, greenish with spots of brown or lavendar.

There is an old legend and a pretty one, that this was the bird that visited the Saviour on the cross; that it twisted its bill in trying to pull out the nails and that its red color came from the blood of the Saviour's wounds,

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WHITE-WINGED CROSSBILL

Averaging a little larger than their red cousins from Sitka, these birds may also show brighter in colors. They have varied coats of reds, greens and yellows with a more blackish wing showing the conspicuous, distinctive double white bars - the "trade mark" on both sexes.

The birds are decidedly rare in Washington and we know little of their habits. Our records in the park are from Longmire and Indian Henry's Hunting Grounds. They should nest here.

Information furnished by others describes the nest as being built of twigs and bark lined with moss. Three or four eggs complete the set, greenish with markings of brown and lilac. As this bird is so rare and little known, there is little we can write about it. They are wanderers like their cousins, and also like them may nest in any locality at any time of year from January to September.

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OREGON TOWHEE

Other common names: Chewink; Catbird; Marsh Robin.

It is questionable whether the Oregon Towhee is strictly a bird of the park. It does not migrate, but is a resident in western Washington at low levels. Towhees cannot live on snow-covered ground.

Our park records are from Taylor and Shaw's publication in which they state that these birds "probably breed in Transition zone within the park below 3000 feet; apparently occurs chiefly as a migrant on the west side from the boundaries to 5000 feet". There is a slight chance that a few pairs may breed at our low southern boundary, but it is difficult to reconcile the statement that the birds are migrant at 5000 feet. We have no records during the past ten years that the bird has been in the park at all.

Towhees are strikingly marked birds, one of the few species with such colors that live on or near the ground. The male has a black head and neck; breast and lower parts white; sides and flanks cinnamon, or chestnut; black on back; wings distinctly marked with large white spots; eyes red. The female is smaller and her colors duller.

The nest is placed on the ground under a bush or tree and is made of bits of bark, dead leaves and grass and lined with grass. Three to five eggs with a whitish base, well covered with light brown, are laid. Two broods a year are raised, from April to June.

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Descriptions continued...