CHRISTMAS WITH THE BIRDS 



BY A. A. ALLEN, PH.D. 



ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF ORNITHOLOGY, CORNELL UNIVERSITY 



THE north wind whistles about the caves. The snow 

 crunches under foot. The leafless branches are 

 whitened with ice and Jack Frost has been decorat- 

 ing the windows. It is winter; it is Christmas time. 

 Our thoughts are upon good old Santa Claus or upon 

 the shrinking coal bin. Birds have been dismissed from 

 our minds. They have gone the way of the green leaves, 

 the wild flow- 

 ers, and the 

 parasols. They 

 were not meant 

 for winter 

 weather. 



How we 

 envy them 

 their freedom 

 of movement. 

 They have but 

 to spread their 

 wings to satis- 

 fy their crav- 

 ing for warmth 

 or for com- 

 pany. Palm 

 Beach, Jamai- 

 ca, the Tropics, 

 are theirs for 



the effort. No ties to bind them 

 to the frozen north country, no 

 responsibilities to hold them, what 

 a life it must be ! 



We sit by our fire places and think of our robins 

 fattening on the mistletoe berries along the Gulf. We 

 picture the orioles flitting among the banana palms and 

 the coffee trees of Costa Rica, and we see the bobolinks 

 picking the rice at the equator. We look through the 

 frosted w i n- 

 dows upon the 

 whirling snow 

 and stiff sway- 

 ing branches 

 and say to our- 

 selves, this is 

 no place for 

 birds. 



But even as 

 we say it, a 

 chorus of mel- 

 low notes an- 

 nounces a flock 

 of snow bunt- 

 ings. They 

 whisk over- 

 head to some 



wind-swept field where the tops of the weeds still pro- 

 ject above the snow to afford them a frugal living. A 

 few shrill peeps tells of a tiny chickadee or a kinglet 

 clinging to the swaying branches and searching for 

 scales and insect eggs. The "yank-yank" of the nuthatch 

 and the sharp calls of the downy and hairy woodpeckers 

 tell us that at least some of the birds are still with us. 



Some, like the 

 snow buntings 

 and tree spar- 

 row s, have 

 come down 

 from the far 

 north to spend 

 the winter, but 

 others, like the 

 chickadees and 



SNOW BIRDS IN A SNOW STORM 



Juncos are often called snow birds because they 

 most often come about the house during snow storms. 

 In this sort of weather birds need food and many 

 perish if the weeds get entirely covered. 



SNOW BUNTINGS AND HORNED 



LARKS ENJOYING THE SEEDS SCATTERED FOR THEM 

 ON THE SNOW 



The snow buntings are the whitest of all our small birds and earn for themselves the name of "snowflakes." 



nuthatches and 

 woo dpeckers, 

 have been with 

 us all summer 

 and yet seem 

 to prefer brav- 

 ing the long 

 winter to mov- 

 ing south. We 

 should not 

 then have dismissed the birds from 

 our minds, even though it is win- 

 ter and the fire-place so fascinating ; 

 even though it is Christmas day. 

 For nineteen years the bird lovers of this country 

 have set aside Christmas morning for a walk with the 

 winter birds. The making of a Christmas bird census 

 is now a part of the life of every ornithologist and the 

 year is not complete until the list of birds which he 



has s e _ on 

 Christmas day 

 has been sent 

 to headquar- 

 ters to be pub- 

 lished in the 

 January num- 

 ber of Bird 

 Lore. From 

 Nova Scotia to 

 California and 

 from British 

 Columbia t o 

 Florida, hun- 

 dreds of these 

 reports are 

 sent in. By 

 referring t o 



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