366 



POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



WINTER BIRDS IN A CITY PARK. 



15y .iames b. CARKINCJTON. 



nV /T OST of US are so used to thinking of birds, if we notice them 

 -^^-J- at all, as belonging to spring and summer that we easily fail 

 to see or hear the comparatively few feathered winter visitors. 

 Among these, however, are some of the most attractive and amus- 

 ing of birds, and to hear their cheery notes and to watch their busy 

 hunt for food on a cold winter day adds a very considerable pleas- 

 ure to a walk in a city park or the near-by woods. In New York 

 city bird lovers have learned that Central Park is one of the very 

 best places in which to watch birds both summer and winter. There 

 is room enough there and the conditions are varied enough to 

 offer congenial dwelling places for nearly all of the better- 

 known birds. In the spring and fall the beautiful and tiny migrat- 

 ing w^ood warblers find 

 the park a good feed- 

 ing ground, and a safe 

 place wherein to linger 

 for a brief time on 

 their journeys north and 

 south. 



With the approach 

 of winter the innumer- 

 able fat and saucy rob- 

 ins that have hunted an- 

 gleworms, and strutted 

 about the lawns of the 

 park since early spring 

 disappear, except for an 

 occasional hardy fellow 

 who perhaps prefers the 

 dangers of a northern 

 winter to those of the 

 lung journey southward. 

 The wood- and the her- 

 mit-thrush; the veery, or 

 Wilson's thrush; the yel- 

 low warbler, so abundant and so musical; the perky little red- 

 start, whose song of " Sweet, sweet, sweeter " closely resembles 

 the yellow warbler's; the somber-colored blackbirds; the Balti- 

 more and the orchard oriole; the scarlet tanager; the catbird; 

 Phoebe; Jenny Wren; the tiny chipping sparrow; the vireos; and 



MU. ('IIICKADEK TAKING < )llSKI{VATI<>NS. 



