Birds and Birding's Guide to:
Watching THE SPARROW-LIKE BIRDS
THE SONG BIRDS
THE THRUSHES
Solitaires
members of the first subfamily (Myadestina), known collectively as the Solitaires, are distinguished from the true Thrushes by the possession of a short, broad, depressed bill and powerful rictal bristles. With the exception of a single Hawaiian genus, the half dozen genera and thirty forms are natives of the New World, ranging from northern South America over the Greater and Lesser Antilles, Central America, and Mexico, with a single species in the western United States. The latter, known as Townsend's Solitaire (Mya-destes townsendii), is a loose-plumaged bird about eight inches long, of a medium brownish gray color, with an eye-ring, a wing-bar, and the tips of the outer tail-feathers white, and the bars of the wing-quills buff.”This exquisite songster,”says Trippe,”is a permanent resident of the mountains of Colorado and may be seen at all times of the year, from the lower valleys of the country up to timber line, and in midsummer even beyond it to the highest limit of the shrubby willows and junipers. It is never a familiar bird, shunning the vicinity of houses and cultivated fields, and seeking the rockiest mountain sides and darkest canyons as its favorite haunts. During the winter it feeds on berries and such insects as it can find, but in the warmer months subsists almost entirely upon the latter, which it catches with the address of the most skilful Flycatcher. It is never gregarious, and usually solitary, associating together only from the time of pairing until the young are able to shift for themselves.”Its wonderful song, which is often heard in the depth of winter, has in it”the notes of the Purple Finch, the Wood Thrush, and the Winter Wren, but blended into a silvery cascade of melody, that ripples and dances down the mountain sides as clear and sparkling as the mountain brook, filling the woods and valleys with ringing music.”Their nest, a loosely constructed pile of weeds and trash, is placed on the ground, under an overhanging bank, or about the roots of trees, and contains three or four eggs of grayish white spotted with pale brown.
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