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Phoebe
Adult--Upper parts grayish olive brown; top of head darker; under parts grayish white, slightly tinged with yellow.
Immature birds have the yellow more pronounced. Length--6.99.
Breeding Range--The Eastern States, from South Carolina northward.
The nest is built chiefly of moss and sometimes lichen, cemented together with mud and lined with hair. It is placed beneath the eaves of a house, on beams of a house or wooden bridge, against the perpendicular side of a stone bridge or culvert, against the face of a cliff, beneath projecting stones, or in almost any available place. The eggs are generally pure white, but it is not at all uncommon to find among a set one or two that have a few light reddish or dark brownish spots; the usual number is 4 or 5. Size--.78 x .57.
The Phoebe is perhaps one of the most common as well as one of the tamest of our birds. Year after year they will build or rebuild their nests in the same place, and that place is frequently over a door that is in constant use, the birds thus evincing but little fear of man.
The nesting place in former times was probably the face of a cliff, and even now it is not uncommon to find nests thus situated, though in the vicinity of buildings. During the past season I found no less than three nests on large stones or cliffs, and two of them were within a hundred yards or so of both a building and a bridge. Two successive broods are reared in different nests, the first nest being begun about the middle of April and the second toward the middle of July. Both nests are built near or about in the same place, the first often being torn down to make room for the second. The birds will seldom forsake the nest, even when most of the eggs are taken; and I have removed a nest containing three eggs in order to photograph it, and even though it was not returned to its original place the female continued laying as if it had never been disturbed. After the young leave the nest they stay together, generally sitting close to each other on a low branch, taking short flights together or singly; this they do for five or six days, when they gradually become separated, the parent bird in the meantime feeding them.