20 BIRDS OF SOUTH DAKOTA 
THE FOOD BOX 
Grosbeaks will come to a food box in summer for sun- 
flower seeds, of which they are very fond, but in the bird world 
the food box is a winter institution. The attractive foods are 
suet, nuts and sunflower seeds. Chickadees and Nuthatches 
are especially fond of the seeds and nuts, while the Downy and 
the Hairy Woodpeckers are especially fond of suet. Grain of 
any kind should never be put in the box, as the birds mentioned 
do not care for it and the grain-eating English Sparrows will 
flock to it, driving all other birds away. 
It is always desirable to have the box just outside the 
dining room window for then the family canwatch the birds 
while sitting at table. With a well supplied box one will eat few 
meals in daylight during winter without enjoying the sight of 
bird neighbors feasting on his bounty. 
To get birds to come to the box at one’s window is a 
simple matter. The natural place for the birds mentioned to 
search for food in winter is on the trunks and larger branches 
of trees. There, in bark crevices, they find insects in their vari- 
ous forms of winter preservation. If the food box is first placed 
beside some tree the birds will soon find it. Then it may be 
moved by gradual stages to any desired place and the birds 
will follow. 
The writer likes a box about two feet long and eight 
inches wide, with a standard about two feet high at each end, 
and these spanned by a crosspiece at the top. Nuts or sunflower 
seeds may be placed in the box and suet tied to the standards 
or crosspiece. This gives room for more than one bird to light 
at a time, and furnishes many exhibitions of bird ways in out- 
witting their fellows, at times even providing occasion for a 
passage at arms. Woodpeckers prefer to eat perched on the 
standards head upward and the Nuthatches head downward, 
while Chickadees are most at home on the box itself. 
One should also have a storm food box, the sort that will 
let the birds in but keep the storm out. An ordinary box with 
one side open to the window will answer but it is much more 
