JANUARY IN BERKELEY 



IDWINTER about San Francisco Bay is a 

 very different matter from the same season in 

 regions where all is ice-bound and white with 

 snow. The birds are not so keenly pressed 

 for shelter and food here as in more rigorous 

 climes. Seldom could it have been said here 

 that "The owl for all his feathers, was a-cold," but there are 

 exceptions to all rules, and especially to rules concerning the 

 weather. I well remember my surprise during my first winter 

 in California, after having been told that both thunder-storms 

 and snow-storms were practically unknown here, at witnessing 

 both phenomena together, as if in defiance of all precedents. 

 I was especially interested to see what effect such an unusual 

 occurrence would have upon the birds, and was pleased to see 

 that they accepted it even more philosophically than I did. 

 Even the tiny Anna's hummer, one of those frail creatures 

 which we always associate with the summer sun, seemed not in 

 the least disconcerted by the inclemency of the weather. A 

 disconsolate California shrike perched upon a telegraph wire 

 and wondered what had gone wrong with the season. In the 

 shrubbery and weed patches of the meadows were golden- 

 crowned and Nuttall's white-crowned sparrows busily en- 

 gaged in food-hunting among the rank vegetation, while 



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