City Birds 



By ANNE HALL GAYLORD, Atlanta. Ga. 



IN LEAVING New England's bird-haunts of roadside thicket and neglected 

 pastures, and coming to Georgia, with its bright red clay soil, sparse 

 grass, and oak and pine groves that seem scanty and open beside the 

 northern woods, I felt I had left behind all chances of bird-study. I eyed 

 without hope the oak grove next to the home that was to be ours, for had they 

 not told me that there were not even Robins in Georgia, except as they passed 

 through and beyond to lovelier places? But newcomers have much to learn, 

 and before the year was over I realized that my new home was in the path of 

 the great spring and fall migrations, and that even such uncommon birds as 

 the Cape May Warbler did not despise my city woods. 



Our home is in the suburbs of the city of Atlanta, in a section opened within 

 the last ten years as a residential district. The homes here have ample grounds, 

 and among them small pieces of the original woods have been left. Such a 

 piece, lying next our home, I adopted as my own. The city clatters by its 

 front line, houses surround it, but within its small recess it is cool and quiet, 

 a safe retreat where Wood Thrush and Catbirds and Cardinals build unmo- 

 lested, where a Hooded Warbler has raised his family, and where many a 

 migrant rests for an hour. This bit of woods measures 250 feet on the side- 

 walk and runs back to a depth of 400 feet. On its rear end it touches an open 

 piece of ground planted with ornamental shrubbery. The whole has, fortu- 

 nately, been neglected, so that honeysuckle, lacing together the brambles and 

 low bushes, has made there almost impenetrable thickets, while young oaks 

 and dogwoods have filled in the spaces between the fine high old oak trees, 

 walnuts, and tulips. If a spring or tiny 'branch' had been in the midst of this 

 spot, no better city bird-home could have been found. But in spite of this 

 lack, I have seen here, within four miles of the city's shopping district, during 

 the last fifteen months, seventy-six varieties of birds. 



Of these, eleven have lived here the year round. I should like to think that 

 the same individuals had remained during that time, becoming my permanent 

 neighbors, but such is probably not the case, for the Thrashers that spent 

 Christmas with me very likely raised their families in the foothills of north 

 Georgia, while those whose babies I have been watching this summer will 

 winter close to the Gulf. Be that as it may, I have been able to see, almost 

 every day in the year, the Brown Thrasher, Cardinal, Towhee, English Spar- 

 row, Mockingbird, Flicker, Blue Jay, Tufted Titmouse, Carolina Wren. 

 Red-headed Woodpecker, and very often the Bluebird, who finally, when 

 spring had come, ranged her family of three for my inspection along an old 

 oak limb close to the house. 



Next to these faithful, well-loved birds come the three winter residents that 

 my woods have sheltered: one Hermit Thrush, who has run along over the 

 dead leaves ahead of me, showing not fear but a kind of resentment in his 



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