78 



City Birds. 



there can be no mistaking the business- 

 like way in which a woodpecker flies 

 straight to his tree, and rests there "as if 

 he had been thrown at it and stuck." The 

 woodpecker's charming cousin, the nut- 

 hatch, you are almost sure to see, too. He 

 will be walking down a tree, head foremost, 

 his constant and invariable habit. Some- 

 times it is necessary for him to go up, so as 

 to start over again, but he will not do this 

 if he thinks you are watching him, for he 

 knows that his other performance is a 

 unique accomplishment among birds. 



After one has gained a general familiar- 

 ity with the commonest birds, every glimpse 

 will tell something new; their flight, their 

 food, their song, their favorite perching 

 places, their habits, gain fresh interest for 

 you every day. Such as we know become 

 more sharply and accurately distinguished 

 from such as we do not know, and a single 

 glance will often tell us enough of some 

 new visitor, to enable us, if not to recog- 

 nize him exactly, at least to tell his con- 

 nections, and place him approximately 

 where he belongs. On one memorable 

 walk through the river bottom of the Mis- 

 sissippi, I added at least half a dozen 

 birds to my list in this way. 



I have given no more than the barest 

 hints to indicate what can be done by a 

 city-bred member of the Audubon Society, 

 but they are hints that can be made a 

 source of much pleasure and knowledge. 

 The series of articles in the Audubon M ag a- 

 ziNK has said all that can be said as to the 

 methods of work, besides giving in detail 

 the marks by which to recognize the birds 

 one may see. All that is attempted here 

 is to tell a little of what can be done " in 

 the birding line" even by those who have 

 the fewest opportunities. For those who 

 live in the West, it is interesting to watch 

 for the birds which are less common in the 

 Eastern States, and particularly such as have 

 never been adequately described. There 

 are many scarcely known species on the 



plains, and even in the Mississippi Valley 

 one may meet with birds which are dis- 

 tinctively western, though well enough 

 known to all who have given any of their 

 attention to bird study. Two of the hand- 

 somest are the brass grackle and the yel- 

 low-headed blackbird — both of them strik- 

 ing illustrations of the truth that there is 

 no such thing as a black blackbird. You 

 may find the graceful shorelark in abund- 

 ance, nesting on the bleak prairies as early 

 as March, and coming down fearlessly to 

 the roadside. These three, with the rose- 

 breasted grosbeak, the bluejay, the north- 

 ern shrike and the golden-winged wood- 

 pecker, are among the most beautiful of the 

 Minnesota birds. 



I have given a list ui conclusion of some 

 fifty of the birds oftenest seen, giving the 

 locality. The first of these divisions, the 

 birds seen in the city limits, is necessarily 

 the smallest, and each succeeding list, if 

 completed, would contain most of the birds 

 mentioned in those preceding it. Thus, 

 under D, I might put almost all the fifty; 

 I have, however, given only two birds 

 which I met nowhere but in the course of 

 an occasional drive through the lake and 

 farm country round St. Paul, Minn. 



List A. Birds Seen in City Streets. — Purple martin, 

 white-bellied swallow, robin, junco, chipping spar- 

 row, goldfinch, chickadee, red-polled linnet, wax- 

 wing, bluebird, warbling vireo, purple grackle (crow 

 blackbird), hairy woodpecker, downy woodpecker, 

 pine grosbeak, brown creeper, bluejay, ovenbird. 



List B. In the Parks. — Tricolor woodpecker, 

 golden-winged woodpecker, nuthatch, Baltimore 

 oriole, wood pewee, scarlet tanager, least flycatcher, 

 yellow-rumped warbler, crown sparrow. 



List C. In the Cemetery, — Wood thrush, hermit 

 thrush, phocbebird, black and white creeper, yellow- 

 bellied woodpecker, brown thrasher, catbird, Mary- 

 land yellowthroat, redstart, kingbird, yellow-winged 

 sparrow, song sparrow, Blackburnian warbler, red- 

 eyed vireo, red-bellied nuthatch, rose-breasted 

 grosbeak. 



List D. In Environs of City. — Brass grackle, 

 bobolink, indigo bird, grass finch, fox sparrow, 

 shorelark, meadowlark, yellow-headed blackbird, 

 shrike (butcher bird), kingfisher. 



Harriktik II. IjOARDMAN. 



