l82 



Bird -Lore 



January 6. Going through the woods I heard the small birds 

 making quite a fuss in the young growth, and on looking for the 

 cavise, discovered a Saw-whet Owl in a little hemlock. When I 

 first caught sight of him he was sitting on one of the smaller 

 branches ten feet from the ground, apparently asleep, with his back 

 to the trunk and his head tipped back. On being closely ap- 

 proached, he seemed to awake suddenly with a start, at once turn- 

 ing his great round eyes in my direction, and after that, never re- 

 moved them from me for an instant, though I walked around his 

 tree several times. He had a partly eaten white-footed mouse slung 

 across the branch beside him, probably the remains of his breakfast. 



Most of the small birds contented themselves with chirping at 

 him from the surrounding trees, occasionally approaching to inspect 

 him more closely and then flying off again, but one Red-breasted 

 Nuthatch remained from the first on a twig close to the Owl's head, 

 and kept up a continual harsh rasping cry, as if having some especial 

 cause of complaint against him. A Flicker and some Blue Jays 

 alighted in the neighboring trees, but not seeing anything of im- 

 portance, soon fiew away again. 



When I shook the tree the Owl merely fluttered a few yards, 

 and lit on a maple sapling just out of my reach. The next time 

 he tried to hide by alighting on the further side of the stem of a 

 pine several inches in diameter, but finding this of no avail, at 



last took a longer flight off 

 through the woods, where I 

 was unable to follow him. 



January 28. Heard what 

 I at first took to be the song 

 of a Ruby-crowned Kinglet 

 today, but it proved to be a 

 Black-capped Chickadee, ut- 

 tering what was to me an 

 entirel}^ new note ; like the 

 Kinglet's, only fainter and 

 shorter, with just a little of 

 the ring of the Canary's song 

 in it. He was sitting all 

 alone under the dark ever- 

 greens, singing to himself in 

 a manner wholly out of keeping with the general disposition and taste 

 of the Chickadee. When I at last disturbed him, he flew to another 

 tree and began searching for insects, uttering the familiar note of 

 his species. 



RED-TAILED HAWK 



