Bird lore - Project Puffin

272 Bird - Lore
The nest rested among the top limbs of a little brush-pile, and was just
two feet above the ground. Some young shoots had grown up through the
brush and their leaves partly covered the nest from view. It had an extreme
breadth of ten inches and was five inches high. In its construction two small
weed-stalks and eleven slender twigs were used. The nest was made mainly of
sixty-eight large leaves, besides a mass of decayed leaf-fragments. Inside
this bed was the inner nest, two and a half inches wide, composed of strips
of soft bark. Assembling this latter material I found that when compressed
A VEERY ON ITS NEST
Photographed by J. M. Schreck
with the hands it was about the size of a baseball. Among the decaying
leaves near the base of the nest three beetles and a small snail had found a home.
The Veery, in common with a large number of other birds, builds a nest
open at the top. The eggs, therefore, are often more or less exposed to the Crow,
the pilfering Jay, and the egg-stealing red squirrel. This necessitates a very
close and careful watch on the part of the owners. At times it may seem that
the birds are not in sight, and that the eggs are deserted, but let the observer
go too near and invariably one or both old birds will apprize him of their
presence by voicing their resentment in loud cries of distress.
The Veery is not among the first-comers in spring, but appears in the
United States from its winter home in the tropics about the first of May.
The species is then scattered during the summer from Colorado to Labrador,
where Audubon mentions finding it; but it is rarely seen or heard south of
New York City and Lake Huron, except in the mountains, until it returns,