A BI-MONTHLY MAGAZINE 



DEVOTED TO THE STUDY AND PROTECTION OF BIRDS 



Official Organ of The Audubon Societies 



Vol. XIII November— December, 1911 No. 6 



Birds and Seasons in My Garden 



VI. THE COMING OF WINTER 

 By MABEL OSGOOD WRIGHT 



IT WAS the first of November, and, though the birches and maples were 

 leafless, the oaks and beeches were still completely clothed in russet, 

 and the deep crimson glow of the smooth-leaved sumachs in the vista 

 from the south window would not have shamed early October. 



The great flocks of the southward migration had passed, and the winter 

 birds, finding food plenty, were holding rather aloof. Juncos had reappeared 

 and, mingled with Song Sparrows at the various feeding-places, a few King- 

 lets explored the old apple-tree, while a marvelous flock of Myrtle Warblers 

 had arrived, with every apparent intention of making a long stay. We knew 

 that it was well past middle autumn, and yet could not reaHze the fact with bees 

 in the chrysanthemums, and the White-throats giving typical, if not perfectly 

 clear, spring notes. All these days, the wind was blowing so incessantly that 

 black frost dared not creep up from the lowland in the face of it. 



Then fell a night when, as the moon came up out of the east, the wind 

 fell before the piercing light, so clear that I could see \^ild-fowl in silhouette 

 as they crossed the path of it, and then Black Frost slipped up and did his 

 work. 



Next morning at breakfast time, an unfamiliar bird form walked along the 

 piazza floor — the White-bellied Nuthatch. Unfamiliar because it moved 

 about on the level like the Sparrows, yet having the same furtive, mouselike 

 motion with which it circles tree trunks. What had attracted it? As I neared 

 the window, a second, and then a third Nuthatch followed the gyrations of 

 the first, and began pulling something from the spaces between the floor- 

 boards, that were laid slightly apart. 



Children playing there, the day before, had dropped hickory-nut shells 

 that still held some bits of meat, and these had been detected from afar by 

 the Nuthatches. Could there be a better example of the luring qualities of 

 specialized food? At once I hung the lumps of suet on their nails in the apple- 



