ORNITHOLOGIST 



— AND — 



OOLOGIST. 



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Joseph M. Wade, Editor and Publisher. 

 Established, March, 1875. 



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VOL. VIII. 



BOSTON, MARCH, 1883. 



No. 3. 



Among the Buteos. 



The voices of our New England Buz- 

 zards are again ringing through their 

 old haunts, and it may now be sea- 

 sonable to review my local notes on 

 their breeding habits last Spring. In 

 short, then, I took 104 eggs. And from 

 other nests in my circle of observation 

 were taken or destroyed by farmers, hawk- 

 hunters and others, sixty more eggs and 

 young birds. So until a more favored 

 breeding range is made known I shall 

 claim this to be the home of the Buteos. 

 A correspondent in Rochester writes that 

 he thinks as many eggs cao be taken yearly 

 in that vicinity, but until this is shown to 

 be true I shall not believe the distribution 

 of species is so equal. If this article could 

 be accompanied by a good physical map of 

 Norwich and its environs, it would help 

 greatly to suj^port my claims. An irregu 

 lar line drawn around the city just outside 

 the suburbs would pass through the breed- 

 ing places of sixteen pairs of Red-should- 

 ered Hawks which I marked down the sec- 

 ond week in April. Except a few hem- 

 locks, the groves and strips of first growth 

 are all deciduous and nearly all nut-bear- 

 ing. The red squirrel, which is not so re- 

 lentlessly shot down as his gray cousin, is 

 amazingly plenty in these suburban woods. 

 While skating yesterday on Yantic cove, 

 within the city limits, I saw seven squirrels 

 playing in the small patch above Christ's 

 church on the river bank. Every one who 

 lias climbed to nests of young Buteos 

 nearly fledged, must have been astonished 

 at the great quantity of these young 



rodents, supplied by the parent birds. In 

 one nest of Red tailed Hawks I have seen 

 portions of nine red squirrels, and from 

 another have counted out on the ground 

 seven entire bodies. A game bird or chick- 

 en now and then, but red squirrels for 

 every day bill-of-fare. Mousing, Master 

 Buteo will go. And frogging, too, for I 

 have several times surprised him in muddy 

 sloughs in the woods, and field collectors 

 often are called to notice the black mud on 

 fresh Hawk's eggs. Given then a great 

 food supply and the species that follow it 

 will be abundant. Over the grove of sec- 

 ong growths to the left of Love Lane, 

 last Spring, I saw a pair of Red-should- 

 ered Hawks hovering for days in succes- 

 sion. I knew they were not breeding in 

 the patch, as the}' had not done so in 

 former years, and there were but three old 

 Crow's nests very low down. But to be 

 very sure I examined the grove repeatedly 

 with care and found it to be alive with red 

 squirrels. In one apiDle-tree hole was a 

 litter of six ; in the butt of an oak Avere 

 five with eyes unopened, and the consj)ic- 

 uous outside nests were many. A Barred 

 Owl clung to the top of a white birch with 

 one claw, and was tearing away at a squir- 

 rel's new domed nest with the other claw. 

 The Hawks had their nest with two young 

 in the swamp beyond, and this grove was 

 their handy larder, and very noisy they 

 were over their daily grace before meat. 



The Buteos' nests from which my '82 

 series Avas taken, were for the most pai-t 

 old ones, the very few exceptions being 

 smaller than those used for several sea- 

 sons. The use of an old nest bv the 



