A BI-MONTHLY MAGAZINE 



DEVOTED TO THE STUDY AND PROTECTION OF BIRDS 



Official Organ of the Audubon Societies 



Vol. XIII July— August, 1911 No. 4 



Birds and Seasons in My Garden 



IV. JULY AND AUGUST 

 By MABEL OSGOOD WRIGHT 



FROM the standpoint of the miUtant bird student who wishes to come, 

 see and conquer, July and August are the low-tide months of the bird 

 world, well-matched twins of January and February. Yet, in my garden, 

 each year we have a little spectacular performance that breaks the com- 

 parative monotony between the nesting and the flocking seasons, and this 

 play we call The Comedy of the Cherry Trees. Today, the sixth of July, this 

 comedy is at its height, and, having begun ten days ago, it bids fair to last 

 another week. 



The cherry trees are five in number, and, though they draw sustenance 

 from our soil, they do not belong to us but to the birds, for were they not 

 bird-sown? Yes; surely, even though their ancestors were garden cherries 

 that yielded the famous fourth of July cherrypie to some careful housewife. 

 Hence, though the cherries are well flavored and plentiful, they are too small 

 to be considered from a culinary standpoint, so, having taken a toll of the eye 

 from the trees through their beauty in blossom time, we, thenceforth, sur- 

 render them to the birds without hindrance or regret. 



Four of these trees are in a copse where they have reached up, tall and slen- 

 der, toward the light. The fifth, or I should rather say, the first, from point of 

 importance, is down in Bluebird Farm within easy reach of the stone drinking- 

 basin, and it is among the branches of these trees that we may best take the 

 bird census of a July day, when the music -is beginning to dwindle in volume 

 and innumerable fledglings are causing not only audible parental anxiety, 

 but warning the garden owners to double the Cat Guard, an important branch 

 of the rural military service of Garden Scouts. 



We have had no novelties nesting here this year, only the rank and file — 

 the good old standbys — the twenty odd species that vox populi means when 

 it says that it loves birds. Here is the list for those who care for tabulation: 

 Robins, Chipping Sparrows, Wrens and Song Sparrows galore; two pairs of 

 Bluebirds, four pairs of Catbirds and the same number of Wood Thrushes; 



