Some Unusual Nesting Sites of Several Arizona Birds

Abstract

The Cactus Wren (Heleodytes brunneicapillus couesi) ordinarily chooses an open site in a bush, small tree, cactus, or yucca. Anmong the unusual sites in which I have found nests of this species are the following. One pair built for several years in the hollow cornice of a schoolhouse. The entrance was through a hole cut one winter by a visiting flicker. Another site was in an old woodpecker's nesting cavity which was twenty-five feet up in a large sycamore, one of a line of these trees extending out from the foothills of the Huachuca Mountains. A broken-out cavity in a sahuaro cactus is also rather out of the ordinary for a Cactus Wren to choose as a nesting site. Previous to 1916 I had found but two or three so placed, but the season of 1922 I have found half a dozen occupied nests in this cactus. During the intervening period I have not been in Arizona and so do not know whether the extra number was a peculiarity of the one season or whether the habit is growing on this wren. The House Finch (Carpodacus mexicanus frontalis) builds as a usual thing in the open, in vines growing around houses, in trees of many kinds, in yuccas, and in cactus. This year I was surprised to see a House Finch fly from a woodpecker hole about thirty feet up in a large sycamore, and climbed up to find its nest cosily placed so that the bird could sit and look out. On the San Pedro River are some large ranches where much hay is raised. At one of these a large stack is always built in a certain deserted ranch yard and a pair of House Finches have had their nest in it every time I have visited the spot. This season, after a lapse of six years, I visited the place again, in company with Mr. A. C. Bent, and remarked as we came to the stack that I always used to find a finch's nest in it just about here, and, as I touched the hay, out flew Madame Finch from her nest, which held five eggs. In passing, may I remark that this was one of the few places where I could count on getting a set of five eggs. Most of the finches in that region lay four. A similar site was in the grassthatched roof of a shed. Old oriole nests are so frequently used as hardly to come under the heading of unusual nesting sites. A Canyon Towhee (Pipilo fuscus mesoleucus) likes best a thick bush, one with thorns preferred; but one pair chose a ledge inside a porch near the roof, such a place as a robin dearly loves. Another built in an old splint lunch basket which had been tossed aside and hung bottom up in a thorny bush. For several years two pairs used to build near the extreme tops of some thickly leafed cottonwood trees at my uncle's home in Tombstone. These nests were thirty feet or more from the ground. After the trees died, one pair took to building in the ivy and honeysuckle which grew over the walls of the house. I found an unfinished nest in one of the vines there this year.