746 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



twitter. The large white patches in their wings, added 

 to their white heads and breasts, give them a very wintry 

 appearance. With them are sometimes a few of the 

 sparrow-like Lapland longspurs, especially in the north- 



GOOD WEATHER FOR TAMING BIRDS 



Birds lose their fear when foot! gets scarce and the easiest time to tame 

 them is during the long heavy snow storms. 



western states, for in the east they are very erratic. 

 Horned larks and redpolls are much more likely to be 

 seen than the longspurs although even they are irregu- 

 lar in their appearance. 



Along the borders of streams and marshes in the 

 northern states, along the edge of the woods, or where- 

 ever there is shrubbery, tree sparrows, juncos, and 

 occasional song sparrows are almost sure to be found. 

 Further south the white-throats, fox, swamp, field and 

 chipping sparrows, meadowlarks, fowhees, cardinals and 

 many other birds can be expected. Where berries still 

 cling to the vines and bushes, robins, bluebirds, mock- 

 ingbirds, hermit thrushes and myrtle warblers will be 

 found in the south, but in the snow states, fruit-eating 

 species are scarcer. One is lucky if he runs upon a 

 flock of cedar waxwings, a grouse, a pheasant, a blue 

 jay or a lone robin, though, of course, the omnivorous 

 crows are everywhere abundant. 



Down on the bay or out on the lake are flocks of 

 ducks redheads, scaup ducks, canvasbacks in large 

 flocks over the weed beds ; small groups of black ducks, 

 mergansers, goldeneyes, old squaws and occasionally 

 other species. With them are a few loons and grebes 

 which seem to spend as much of their time beneath the 



water as above and, coursing overhead, are numbers 

 of graceful gulls ever ready to pounce upon any floating 

 fish or dying waterfowl. 



The carnivorous birds are less numerous than any 

 of the others and it is usually a red letter day when one 

 finds a hawk, an owl or a shrike. Once one has located 

 their winter haunts, however, he can tramp with reason- 

 able certainty of finding them. The little screech owl 

 usually has some particular knot-hole that he is fond 

 of sitting in, the short-eared owl roosts in the same 

 corner of the marsh, and the long-eared in the same 

 evergreen thicket, week after week. The hawks and 

 the shrikes often have a rather definite circuit which 

 they follow and though it may cover miles of territory, 

 they often arrive at the same place at about the same 

 time every day. 



But if one is fond of the winter birds, it is not 

 necessary that he should go far afield. If he com- 

 mences in the fall to put out the foods that they like, 

 he can expect to attract almost any species to his own 

 windows during the course of the winter. If he delays 

 putting out the food until the birds have formed more 

 or less definite circuits which they follow for the rest 



A STUDY IN BLACK AND WHITE 

 Never is a crow so black as when seen against the snow covered branches. 



of the winter, he is apt to be much less successful in 

 attracting them unless his garden happens to lie in the 

 circuit. Suet for the woodpeckers and other insectivor- 

 ous birds; millet, chick feed, or screenings from grain, 



