Summer Bird Life at Delay an 105 



The efifects of spriiig protection for waterfowl are es- 

 pecially noticeable; more ducks breed about Delavan than 

 at any time since I can remember; and if they continue to 

 increase the numbers of young birds must soon approach 

 in some measure those of the still earlier days before the 

 ducks were forced by an army of spring shooters to desert 

 their old breeding grounds. In my shooting days at Dela- 

 van we killed almost entirely wood ducks on the opening 

 of the season (August 20, or later on September 1), and 

 individuals of other species before the first fall migration 

 had commenced were comparatively rare. Some years 

 there was a fair sprinkling of blue-winged teals, or an oc- 

 casional mallard, gadwall, or other river duck. Now the 

 mallaid and blue-winged teal are the most common breed- 

 ing species ; black ducks are fairly so ; and, most unexpect- 

 edly, I find that pintails now regularly nest. Last year 

 (1918) fully fifty pintails were reared in one large marshy 

 pond not over seven miles from Delavan, where the flocks 

 of young birds were seen by sportsmen friends of mine be- 

 fore the shooting season opened. About five hundred 

 ducks, mostly mallards, teals, wood ducks, and pintails 

 were, I was told, found in this one pond on the opening 

 day, September 16, 1918. Baldpates and pintails are of 

 late years frequently found in the bags on the first day's 

 shooting, and although there is no direct evidence that the 

 baldpate nests, it is hardly likely that any extensive migra- 

 tion has taken place at that early date. 



The robin, wood thrush, catbird, song sparrow, and 

 kingbird are certainly as abundant as they were twenty-five 

 years ago, and I feel almost sure that they have actually in- 

 creased in numbers since that time. The black tern is still 

 a most fimiliar bird in suitable localities and seems fully 

 as abundant as formerly. As many as fifty terns were 

 seen in one flock, the adults and young congregated on the 

 muddy shore and a nearby fence. At each of the old ponds 

 and marshes that I vistied during my stay I saw numbers 

 of them gracefully hunting for insects low over the water 



