While perching, a constant tail-twitching is kept up; and a faint, fretful
"Tshee-kee, tshee-kee" escapes the bird when inactively waiting for a dinner
to heave in sight.
In the Middle Atlantic States its peeping sound and the clicking of its
particolored bill are infrequently heard in the village streets in the autumn,
when the shy and solitary birds are enticed from the deep woods by a prospect
of a more plentiful diet of insects, attracted by the fruit in orchards and
gardens.
Never far from the ground, on two or more parallel branches, the shallow,
unsubstantial nest is laid. Some one has cleverly described it as "a tuft of
hay caught by the limb from a load driven under it," but this description
omits all mention of the quantities of blossoms that must be gathered to line
the cradle for the tiny, cream white eggs spotted with brown.
YELLOW-BELLIED FLYCATCHER (Empidonax flaviventris) Flycatcher
family
Length -- 5 to 5.6 inches. About an inch smaller than the English
sparrow.
Male -- Rather dark, but true olive-green above. Throat and
breast yellowish olive, shading into pale yellow underneath,
including wing linings and under tail coverts. Wings have
yellowish bars. Whitish ring around eye. Upper part of bill
black, under part whitish or flesh-colored.
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