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Rural Schooi. T>i:aflkt 



HOW TO ATTRACT WILD BIRDS 

 Arthur A. Allen 



OW would you like to have a wild bird come and feed 



from your hand ? Would you like to stand at your 



schoolroom window with the children and have a 



hole flock of wild birds feeding on the window sill? 



Would you like to feel that you are helping to 



keep at least a few small birds from starving to 



death through tlie long, cold winter? Then follow 



these directions, and if your efforts do not meet 



with success at first have a little jjatience, and 



#\\\ a wealth of pleasure is in store for you and vour 



pupils. 



When to begin. — Do not wait until the ground is covered with snow 

 before any plans are made to attract the birds; begin now, or at least 

 before the middle of November, and you will succeed in keeping more 

 birds than might otherwise stay. 



What food to use. — The winter birds in New York State are of two 

 kinds — seed eaters and insect eaters. The seed eaters that may be 

 expected to come to a feeding shelf are the tree sparrow, the song sparrow, 

 the junco, the redpoll, the pine siskin, the crossbill, and the pine eve- 

 ning grosbeaks. Horned larks and snow buntings prefer to feed in the 

 open, but they can be attracted to spaces in the school yard by scattering 

 seed on the ground. For seed-eating birds good foods to use are 

 cracked com, buckwheat, hemp, millet, and sunflower seed; or, better 

 still, mixed chicken feed, such as is sold for young chicks, sweepings from 

 a neighboring mill, or hayseed from the bam floor. The insect eaters are 

 the woodpeckers (the downy and the hairy in all parts of the State, with 

 the flicker, the red-headed, and the red-bellied, in the southern counties), 

 the nuthatches, the chickadee, and the brown creeper. The woodpeckers 

 find their natural food by drilling into the chambers of wood-boring larva ; 

 the others find hibernating insects, pupae, or eggs in the crevices of the 

 bark. All of them, however, are very fond of beef suet, and once they 

 have found a piece fastened in the tree they will return to it again and 

 again until it is all gone. Sunflower seeds and crumbs of raw peanuts are 

 preferred by chickadees and nuthatches to any other food, but these are 

 not always easily obtainable, and the suet is a good substitute. 



Where to place the food. — Do not expect the birds to be tame at first, 

 or to come immediately to the window sill. One of the greatest pleasures 

 to be derived from feeding the birds is to watch the gradual loss of timidity 

 and the increase in confidence of the birds that come regularly to feed. 

 At first they will be as wild as any birds of the woods, but gradually, as 



