Taming Evening Grosbeaks 



311 



My flock of Grosbeaks, which has spent part of every morning but one, 

 and all of most mornings, in my yard since the middle of February, has varied 

 in size from three birds to over thirty. They came to the yard, a well-treed 

 half-acre in the center of Rutland, Vt., attracted by a few buckthorn berries. 

 This was in early February, after they had pretty well cleaned up the town's 

 supply of box elder. About the middle of February, seeing that the berries 

 would not long outlast their voracious appetites, I bought sunflower seed, 

 nailed an open box to a fence-post under the buckthorn bush, and had to 

 wait less than an hour to have it literally filled with Grosbeaks. The berries 

 took second place thereafter. 



•'AS MANY AS ELEVEN GROSBEAKS HAVE BEEN SEEN FEEDING TOGETHER ON ONE 

 SILL THREE FEET LONGHAND EIGHT INCHES WIDE" 



In a day or so, twenty Grosbeaks, all a flutter of black and yellow and white 

 against the sunlit snow, perched on or in, or hovered closely about, the little 

 improvised feeder. The box was about 30 feet from the nearest window, in a 

 thicket that slightly obscured the view. I sprinkled seed on the ground under 

 the box and so gradually trailed the birds on to the open lawn. Then a visitor 

 to the house said scornfufly, "Mr. Baynes has feeding-boxes in his windows." 

 I got the birds close to the house, sprinkled seed up a sloping board to a cornice, 

 and so led them on to the dining-room window-sill. A few days later they were 

 also feeding from a second-story sill above the dining-room and from a roof 

 and sill on the other side of the house. On February 27 they fed from my hands. 

 On March 15, wishing to share my birds with a little neighbor who was quaran- 

 tined, I made a sunflower trail from under a tree between our two houses, where 

 the flock often perched between meals, to her piazza. Then she threw seed 



