FEATURED EXHIBIT 



in 

 APRIL 



One of the displays in the April Featured Ex- 

 hibit is the young horned owl pair at the left, 

 invaders of a crow's nest. (Owls do not build 

 nests.) 



V>alendars have their uses, but for the 

 museum ornithologist the seasons, if not 

 the months themselves, are revealed al- 

 most as well by the fluctuating volume 

 and pattern of inquiries about birds 

 that are received in the course of a year. 



In late fall and winter, for example, 

 most of the calls are for help in iden- 

 tifying strange birds seen along the lake 

 front or through the kitchen window — 

 the loons, ducks, gulls, sparrows and 

 others that nest in the North and seem- 

 ingly arrive from nowhere with the first 

 cold weather. Other questions relate 

 to feeding stations and their mainten- 

 ance. Winter may be judged far spent 

 when, usually in February, some one 

 phones to announce the return of the 

 "first robin," a bird that, more likely 

 than not, never bothered to leave the 

 Chicago area at all. 



Spring ushers in the period of great- 

 est activity — both of birds and, to judge 

 from my telephone calls, of those who 

 interest themselves in birds. The cor- 

 relation, in a sense a symbiotic relation- 

 ship, is reflected in the mounting de- 

 mand during March and April for in- 

 formation about the spring migration, 

 and where or when various species can 

 be found. At this time, too, we have 

 learned to expect urgent inquiries about 

 the arrival date and housing require- 



Nests 



and 



Eggs 



EMMET R. BLAKE 

 Curator of Birds 



ments of purple martins (April 15). 



In spring even the schools appear to 

 respond to the resurgence of activity in 

 the world of birds. At .that season we 

 can expect to be inundated with calls 



when a worried householder complains 

 that woodpeckers are drilling nesting 

 holes all over his roof and siding. What 

 can be done about it? Fortunately, we 

 can reassure the homeowner, for wood- 

 peckers do not customarily dig nesting 

 holes in houses and the bird's noisy rat- 

 a-tat-tat, usually of brief duration, is 

 but an expression of spring-time exuber- 

 ance or, perhaps, a means of commun- 

 ication with its fellows. 



Appropriate to the season is this 

 month's featured exhibit of nests, eggs, 

 and young birds at the west end of the 

 Boardman Conover Hall (Hall 21, first 

 floor, west). There one can see not 

 only the eggs of most birds that com- 

 monly nest in the Chicago area but also 

 striking examples of the variability of 

 birds' eggs in size, shape, color, and 

 markings. Nests from many parts of 

 the world illustrate the remarkable di- 

 versity of constructions and of the ma- 

 terials utilized by birds for the protec- 



This Pied-billed 

 Grebe found as a 

 suitable site for her 

 nest a bed of cat- 

 tails at the Morton 

 Arboretum. (Photo 

 by Emmet R. Blake) 



from distraught parents who, while pro- 

 fessing to need information for a young- 

 ster, patently are themselves resigned to 

 finishing a school assignment too long 

 delayed. And it is April with certainty 



tion of their eggs and young. Other 

 exhibits in nearby wall cases illustrate 

 some aspects of reproduction in birds, 

 and the several types of juvenile de- 

 velopment. 



APRIL Page 7 



