ri92 The Cornell Reading-Courses 



PROGRAMS ON THE OUT-OF-DOORS 



Ada E. Georgia 

 A season's bird study 



"Winter is a good time to begin the study of birds. Their numbers are 

 not then so great as to be confusing to the learner; they are not, as a rule, 

 so shy and difficult to approach as at other seasons, when family cares 

 make them secretive and doubtful of man's friendship. They endure 

 the unkind season, too, with such stiirdiness that our admiration goes out 

 to the " scraps of valor that just for play front the north wind." 



A study club desiring to make the acquaintance of the winter birds 

 should let them know the fact, advertising it by many and repeated 

 invitations to breakfast, dine, and sup at the club's expense. Scraps of 

 suet, pork or bacon rinds, tied or wired to the limbs of trees; hayseed, 

 grain, or the crumbs from the table, scattered in some sheltered spot for 

 the seed-eaters — such food will draw the birds to partake of its bounty 

 and will give the club a chance to learn their names and appearance and 

 to study their ways. 



But there are other winter birds of great economic importance, with 

 which only chance is likely to bring about an acquaintance, such as the 

 hawks and the owls, or such rare visitants from the North as the longspurs 

 and the crossbills. A good plan for study is to prepare a list of such birds 

 as may be abroad in the season of snow and cold weather, and then by 

 diligent observation seek to know them personally. 



The following is a list of the winter birds most likely to be met in field 

 and wood and by the roadside : 



Downy and hairy and red-headed woodpeckers, chickadees, and nut- 

 hatches, who will come to the suet feast, where perhaps the blue jay and 

 the crow will join them; flocks of juncos, sometimes called the slate-colored 

 snowbirds, who drop down in fence corners and along roadsides to clean 

 seeds from neglected weeds; the rarer snow buntings and tree sparrows, 

 driven southward by the severity of the weather; song sparrows singing 

 as bravely as in June; goldfinches, dressed in sparrow-like brown instead 

 of in black-and-gold, but always to be identified by their dipping, undu- 

 lating flight; cedar birds, particularly if there are berry-bearing shrubs 

 about; dainty redpolls, hardly as big as one's thumb yet preferring arctic 

 weather and driven southward only by snow so deep as to bury the seed- 

 bearing weeds and plants on which they depend for food; pine grosbeaks. 



Note. — In some instances men and women in the community have a club for study of both farm and 

 household subjects, or the women vary their programs with subjects pertaining to the out-of-doors. 

 With this fact in mind we are giving material th:it will aid in the making of a program, and are offering 

 direction for home reading on birds and trees, the soil and gardening. — Editor. 



