On windless days when trees of Sierra Nevada forests are motionless against a sky so blue that 'tis the despair of painters — there is no color on the palette to match it — the eye catches the slightest motion instantly.
Far overhead a pine leaf cluster vibrates, then another and the glasses reveal that characteristic white nape patch of the clan. Then the olive brown head shows for an instant and we know the PYGMIES are at work aloft.
An industrious, energetic crew destroying bug pirates hiding in the rigging, so that the winter gales will not carry away the spars of these mighty trees.
Like other members of the genus, the Pygmy bands with outsiders and they go rollicking thru the woods, playing the hunting game with the same goodnatured spirit they do life, enlivening their going by much conversation and an occasional scrap.
Mountains of western North America in coniferous forests. North to British Columbia (Vancouver), southern Montana and southeastern Wyoming, south into Mexico, and from Pacific Coast to Rockies of Colorado and New Mexico.