Bird lore - Project Puffin

The Audubon Societies 195
Close to the corner of our piazza, which is daily occupied by the family, are
two small magnolia trees. Both a pair of Robins and a pair of Chipping Spar-
rows selected at the same time the same one of these two trees to build in. For
two days there was continual war between the two pairs. Every time either pair
would take possession of a particular crotch, the other pair would fight them
off. About the third day, both Robins and Chippys seemed to decide that it
was a drawn battle, each pair forsaking that particular tree for the second one
a few feet away, and each pair of birds quietly and peacefully going to work
nest-building in the second tree. The more interesting fact was that they
placed their nests not more than a foot and a half apart from each other.
JUNIOR AUDUBON SOCIETY, TYNGSBORO, MASS.
Each pair seemed peacefully content, the young birds in either nest being
hatched only one day apart. Feeding went on also in perfect peace.
When a week old the young Robins were destroyed by a squirrel or cat,
and though the Chippy's nest was only a little more than a foot above the
Robin's nest, the young Chippys were still being fed. The following day they
too had disappeared, and the parent birds were sitting disconsolately about.
[Miss] Laura Vanderbilt, Englewood, New Jersey.
[Very few observations concerning the proximity of nesting birds, whether of the
same or different species, are on record as compared with observations of individual
nests. By selecting a small area and carefully inspecting the occupants of each tree,
hedge or other site, much can be learned regarding the disposition and preferences of
nesting birds. The writer once found three pairs of birds nesting in a single a!)ple tree:
a pair of Robins, a pair of Chipping Sparrows, and a pair of House Wrens, with two un-
occupied or
A. H. W.j
previously occupied nests, one of the Robin and one of the Sparrow.
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