There is an old woodroad curving westward from our home here in Dutchess County, New York State. It leads to some overgrown pasture lots where GOLDENWINGS live. Almost any hour of the day from the middle of May to the last of June, their penetrating lowpitched four-noted song may be heard in these deserted old fields. Altho the song is not loud, the bird seem to give every ounce of energy he possesses to its rendition, standing almost erect with ruffled throat feathers.
On the woodland edge of one of these clearings, not far from a large flat rock where buckwheat once was thrashed, I detected a pair of birds starting to build their home under the shelter of a witchhazel clump. This was on the twenty-sixth of May and the foundation was just being finished. The most industrious dairy farmer is not more energetic than these midgets for when I returned the second day the bulky home — fully five inches across — was roofed, clapboarded and floored! And the next day one egg was laid and housekeeping started.
The female seemed to do most of the work, the proud little male being too uptree to help a great deal altho I did see him dragging some heavy leaf beams onto the reservation. Good luck attended their homebuilding operations for in a little over three weeks the young were on their own.
Eastern United States, north to New Hampshire and Wisconsin; west to the Mississippi River.