In Winter Fields 57 



I startled a junco from his feeding place on the brook's 

 bank. He was all alone. I think that was the only time in 

 my field experiences that I have found a junco separated from 

 his fellows. While the books put this little snowbird down 

 as a common winter resident in this latitude, I have found it 

 in the heart of winter .only on three occasions, and then in 

 limited numbers. A few yards beyond the junco's foraging 

 place I found the empty tenement of a red-eyed vireo. The 

 vireo had used a piece of newspaper as a part of his building 

 material. The print was still clear, and I found the date-line 

 of a dispatch 'at the heading of a short article. The date was 

 July 3, of the year before. This was proof beyond question 

 that the vireo had begun housekeeping rather later in the 

 season than is usual with his tribe. Judging from other 

 empty nests that I found close at hand the vireo had pleas- 

 ant neighbors, the redstarts and the yellow warblers. The 

 birds must have found this ravine an ideal summer resort, 

 plenty of shade, good water, lake breezes, and a larder well 

 supplied with all the insect delicacies of the season. 



The pathway of the stream was lined in places with snow 

 which the thaw had spared. I found that I was not the first 

 traveler of the morning. A rabbit had preceded me, and 

 apparently he had gone a long way from home, for the marks 

 of his footsteps led on until the ravine was at an end. A jay 

 resented my intrusion into the ravine. The jay finds his per- 

 fect setting in a winter day. His coloring makes the bird 

 seem like a bit broken from the blue sky and from the edge 

 of a cold gray cloud. When I finally reached the plain above 

 the ravine, I found that a blizzard was raging. In the shel- 

 tered depths I had not known of the change in the weather. 

 Within an hour the worst storm of the year was sweeping 



