Notes from Field and Study 



285 



Suet. — Red-breasted Nuthatch. 



Millet Seed. — Tree Sparrow. 



Bread Crumbs. — Downy Woodpecker. 



Sumac. — Pheasant, Slate-colored Junco, 

 Robin, Bluebird. 



Chaff. — Slate-colored Junco, Black- 

 capped Chickadee. 



Whole Corn. — Pheasant. 



Lard. — Downy Woodpecker, Black- 

 capped Chickadee. — Rich.'\rd M. Chase, 

 Rochester, N. Y. 



Red-throated Loon at Branchport, N. Y. 



The harbor at Branchport is cut off 

 from the rest of Lake Keuka by a long 

 sandbar through which a channel has been 

 cut to enable the boats to enter and leave 

 the harbor. There is enough current flow- 

 ing through the channel to keep it free 



slip by and swim rapidly to the other 

 end of the opening. It stayed in the 

 channel the next two days, but when I 

 went down there on the nth it had left 

 and it was not seen again. — Verdi 

 BuRTCH, Branchport, N. Y. 



Yellow-crowned Night Heron in 

 New Hampshire 



It may interest you to hear that I saw 

 a Yellow-crowned Night Heron feeding 

 with some Black-crowned Night Herons on 

 the mud flats in Portsmouth, N. H., July 

 8, 1920. There was no question about its 

 identity. The bird was in adult plumage 

 and I had my glasses on it at fairly close 

 range. Finally it was scared up by a 

 passing boat, and alighted in a pine tree 

 some thirty feet from where I was sitting. — 

 John T. Coolidge, Jr., Portsmouth, N. H. 



RED-THROATED LOON 



Photographed by Verdi Burtch, Branchport 



N. Y., Feb. 18, 1918 



from ice even in the very coldest weather, 

 and I frequently find wild ducks there and 

 occasionally a Holboell's Grebe. 



February 8, 1918, I found a Red- 

 throated Loon in the channel and I was 

 told by some fishermen that it had been 

 there for two or three days. It was rather 

 slow in its movements, did not dive at all 

 and kept to the opposite side of the channel 

 from me. There was a female Canvasback 

 and a female American Scaup Duck with 

 it in the channel but they flew away as I 

 approached. The Loon did not attempt 

 to fly or to dive, but when cornered would 



Brave Quail 



It is interesting to note how the shy 

 birds' fear of man changes with the 

 seasons. Early in July when I was hunt- 

 ing along the edge of upper Barnegat 

 Bay, N. J., for good picnic ground, I heard 

 a Quail give the bob-white call a little 

 distance away in the scattered pine timber. 

 I went inland a few paces, then sat down 

 behind a tree and whistled the female 

 note, which brought a quick answer, soon 

 to be repeated several times and nearer. 

 Then I saw the bird, a fine male, run across 

 an open patch of sand about twenty feet 

 distant, as if he had not correctly placed 

 the whereabouts of the call. Another 

 whistle, low and very short, brought him 

 like a cannon ball right past my face, 

 where I firmly believe he would have hit 

 had his eye not recognized a possible 

 enemy in time. Believing that now the 

 bird would leave the neighborhood I 

 stood up and was much surprised to hear 

 another bob-white close behind me. Quick- 

 ly stepping into the bushes I flushed him, 

 then returned to the picnic party the 

 members of which were making merry 

 not far away. 



Now and then I made a poor attempt 



