During the summer of 1954, several nesting records of interest were added to the park's ever-increasing store of ornithological information. Nests were found, each for the second time only within Crater Lake National Park, for two species. These were the ruby-crowned kinglet, Regulus calendula (Linnaeus), and the Pacific nighthawk, Chordeiles minor (Forster).

Nest & Eggs of Pacific Nighthawk From Kodachrome by Richard M. Brown

On July 16, between lower Munson Meadow and the road to Annie Spring, at an elevation of about 6,200 feet, I discovered the ruby-crowned kinglet carrying food to a nest crowded with five nearly-grown young. The nest was situated in a lodgepole pine, near the outer end of a dense mass of branches about ten feet above the ground. It was so well hidden as to be only barely visible from below. The bulk of the nest was made up of dead lichens, with much deer hair woven through it. A few bits of rabbit fur and red string were scattered around the top and sides. Feathers lined the interior, one of them apparently coming from a mountain bluebird. The nest measured four inches in greatest diameter and three and one-half inches in depth; the cup was only one and three-quarters inches wide and one and one-half inches deep. The empty nest was collected later in the summer and is now in the park collection (CLNP 632).

The other "find of the year" was the discovery by Mrs. Stine, wife of Ranger J. Francis Stine, of a nesting nighthawk about one-third mile southeast of the Lost Creek Ranger Station (Stine and Stine, 1954). The two eggs were found on the ground in a tiny clearing from which the pine needles and pebbles had been pushed aside. The site was a few feet from a small group of lodgepole pines, typical of that relatively open woodland. Discovered on July 18, the eggs hatched a day apart, on the 27th and 28th. By mid-August, the two downy young could still be found by a careful search of the area within several hundred feet of the nest.

On July 19, a pair of violet-green swallows, Tachycineta thalassina (Swainson), were seen entering the same cavity in one of the Wheeler Creek pinnacles that was evidently used in 1953 as a nesting site. Mountain chickadees, Parus gambeli Ridgway, nested in a cavity at the top of a four-foot mountain hemlock stub in the South Entrance utility area. On June 30, several young and one of the adult birds were found in the hole. The parent made no effort to escape but showed its agitation by hissing and pecking at the wall of the cavity. A red-breasted nuthatch, Sitta canadensis Linnaeus, was seen on June 23 carrying fragments a wood out of a hole twenty feet up in a dead mountain hemlock near Duwee Falls.

Western tanagers, Piranga ludoviciana (Wilson), were again abundant in the vicinity of Park Headquarters and were especially numerous around the Lost Creek Ranger Station -- until early August, when they became much less noticeable. An earnest attempt was made to locate a nest, since one has never been found in the park, but observation of females and singing males produced no results in this respect. While searching in the vicinity of lower Munson Meadow on July 12, one male was observed pursuing another, suggesting territorial behavior. On the 14th, a half-mile outside the south boundary, a pair of western tanagers were seen going to what appeared to be a nest in a dense tuft of needles at the outer end of a ponderosa pine branch about twenty- five feet above the ground. On subsequent visits, however, neither bird was seen. Three of four nearly-grown young tanagers were observed while being fed by a female near Castle Crest Wildflower Garden on August 7.

Other records of juvenile birds being fed by parents during this summer are: a gray jay, Perisoreus canadensis (Linnaeus), at Cold Spring Campground on June 23; several ruby-crowned kinglets in the lodgepole pine forest a mile northwest of Lost Creek Ranger Station on July 19; three hairy woodpeckers, Dendrocopos villosus (Linnaeus), near lower Munson Meadow on July 23; a Steller jay, Cyanocitta stelleri (Gmelin), at Annie Spring Campground on July 28; and an olive-sided flycatcher, Nuttallornis borealis (Swainson), being fed a large dragonfly along the Lake Trail on August 11. With the exception of the last, all of the birds were actively following the adult.

References

Farner, Donald S. 1952. The Birds of Crater Lake National Park. Lawrence, University of Kansas Press. ix, 187 pp.

Stine, J. Francis, and Mrs. Marcella Stine. 1954. Lost Creek Ramblings. Nature Notes from Crater Lake 20, pp. 18-20.

Wood, Robert C. 1953. Nesting birds. Nature Notes from Crater Lake 19:31.