120 AUTUMN NOTES IN IOWA 



large winter buds. The sparrow remained there 

 for three or four minutes, flirting his tail up and 

 down, turning face about once or twice, and giving 

 the thin, metallic alarm note every few seconds. 

 His manner was that of a sentinel. 



A few other birds have been about town or 

 country this month. On the tenth, a large flock of 

 blackbirds flew noisily over the town. It had been 

 so long since we had seen them we supposed them 

 gone. On the sixth a robin perched on a small 

 branch of a tree in a vacant lot, preening his 

 feathers. In a country walk on the ninth, a sol- 

 itary gruff-looking shrike appeared on a telegraph 

 wire. Last year we saw a similar one in the same 

 situation, near the end of November, and from its 

 size, shape, and manner thought it must be a great 

 northern, though possibly it was only a belated 

 loggerhead. Now and then goldfinches dart over, 

 in flocks of twenty or thirty, chattering in quite 

 lively fasliion. They seem smaller than in sum- 

 mer, partly on account of their dull plumage, per- 

 haps, or because the background is a bare, wide 

 wintry landscape. Snowbirds are here in the usual 

 flocks of from twenty to fifty, showing their dark 

 plumage, like slaty ice, and flirting white tail 

 feathers suggestive of thin lines of snow ; repeat- 

 ing their metallic tsips among the garden bushes 

 or orchard trees. The firm, undulatory flight of the 

 hairy woodpecker is a frequent sight, and his res- 



