122 



HOW TO STUDY BIRDS 



The frosts bring flights of water- fowl to swamps and 

 waters, and of woodcock to the moist cover. In the 

 meadow we may look for the Wilson's snipe that 

 darts up, no easy target for the gunner, and the last of 

 the rails, that flutter from the world of tangle, all too 

 easy a mark. Juncos and white-throated sparrows 

 flit before us almost anywhere. The lisp of the king- 

 lets and brown creeper is again to be heard, with the 

 quaint gutturals of the two nuthatches, of which the 

 red-breasted is the typical one which we are glad to 

 see. The last of the warbler migration is passing, the 

 more tender kinds having gone long since. 



Among our hardier delinquents are the black- 

 throated green, black-throated blue, blackpoll, yellow 

 palm, and myrtle warblers, the latter being the har- 

 diest of all, the only one which may dare to winter 

 with us. The winter wren is back, to dodge among 

 the brush-heaps and other debris a mouse of a bird 

 it is. This is the time for the rusty grackle to flock 

 again along the meadows, and the pipit on the dry 

 open fields, when flocking robins, bluebirds, various 

 finches, red-wings, and last flocks of tree swallows are 

 in evidence. One by one the last of the remaining 

 summer birds are seen and the winter residents appear, 

 most of the real northerners not till the month is over. 



As there is a charm to October, so there is to No- 

 vember. The birds have now come mostly to a win- 

 ter basis, but the country has opened its portals to us. 

 With the fall of the leaves we can see long distances 

 through the woods, and watch the grouse and wood- 



