_Parus montanus_, GAMBEL, Pr. A. N. S. Phila. April, 1843, 259;
Journ. A. N. Sc. 2d Series, I, 1847, 35, pl. viii, f.
1.—BAIRD, B. N. A. 1858, 394; Review Am. B. I, 1864,
82.—ELLIOT, Illust.—COOPER, Birds Cal. 1, 46.
SP. CHAR. Head and neck above, with under part of head and throat,
glossy black; forehead, stripe above the eye and band below it,
involving the auriculars, white. These stripes embracing between them
a black band through the eye and confluent with the black of the head.
Above ashy; beneath similar, but paler; the upper part of breast and
middle line of belly white. Length about 5 inches; wing, 2.60; tail,
2.40.
HAB. Mountain region of Middle and Western United States.
[Line drawing: _Parus atricapillus._
12851]
HABITS. The Mountain Chickadee was first met with by Dr. Gambel in
journeying westward from Santa Fé, in New Mexico, and from thence was
found in all the ranges of the Rocky Mountains nearly to California.
Its notes and habits are said to closely resemble those of the common
Chickadee, but weaker and more varied. It keeps more in low bushes,
where it moves from branch to branch with untiring activity, searching
each minutely for small insects. It also frequently descends to the
ground to pick up small seeds. While thus occupied it will
occasionally stop, look round, and, uttering a slender _te-de-de_, and
then its usual note, _to-de-de-dait_, will fly to another bush.
On the Rio Colorado they kept chiefly among the cotton-wood trees that
grew along its banks, and its familiar notes were almost the only
sounds heard. They were observed in large and busy flocks along the
smaller streams in company with the Least Tit and the _Reguli_. Dr.
Gambel did not find them, however, so abundant on the California sides
of the ridge, where other species took their place.
Dr. Heermann found this Titmouse abundant among the mountains
surrounding the Volcano in the southern mines, and subsequently met
with them on the summit of the Tejon Pass. He thinks their notes and
habits very similar to those of the _atricapillus_. Dr. Suckley
obtained a single specimen at Fort Dalles, but regarded it as
extremely rare in that locality. Dr. Woodhouse found it quite abundant
in the San Francisco Mountains of New Mexico, where it was feeding
among the tall pines in company with kindred species.
[Illustration: _Parus montanus._]
Mr. Ridgway found this species in great abundance among the pines on
the eastern slope of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, as well as in all
the extensive cedar-groves on the mountains to the eastward. Around
Carson City this species was found throughout the winter. In its
manners and notes, particularly the latter, it was hardly
distinguishable from _P. carolinensis_. The notes are described as
louder and more distinct, though their calls in spring are rather less
clearly articulated.
Parus atricapillus, LINN.