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Bird- Lore 



in my mind's eye, I see the flocks feeding 

 before me in the bleak fields or hear them 

 go calling overhead. And when the snow 

 once more steals softly down and the winds 

 bring cold blasts from the frigid north, 

 I shall wait patiently to catch the first 

 glimpse of my sociable winter companions. 

 — the Redpolls. — Rich.^rd C. Harlow, 

 Pennsylvania State College. 



Redpolls and White-winged Crossbills in 

 New Hampshire 



Were Redpolls unusually abundant 

 everywhere this year, or were we remarka- 

 bly favored ? Two amateurs in the Winni- 

 pesaukee region have been watching these 

 birds for five months, beginning with two 

 on November 24, 1908, and reaching a 

 climax of hundreds upon hundreds in the 

 last days of March and the first of April, 

 1909. One seldom sees a thousand birds 

 together in New Hampshire, even in 

 migration periods, but there must have 

 been that number of Redpolls in Folsom 

 Wood on March 31. It was easy to esti- 

 mate the little groups upon the ground 

 within sight of the old quarry hillside where 

 we stood to watch, but the trees above and 

 back of us were full, and as many more of 

 changing groups formed and reformed in 

 dissolving views as far as eye could reach. 

 When I left my friend at this station and 

 allowed my snowshoes to carry me some 

 distance from the road which we had 

 traveled to the quarry, I found as many 

 hundreds circling through the deeper 

 woods, while her number suffered no 

 decrease. If individuals broke away from 

 any special group, as they evidently did 

 in all the rapid whirls from ground to trees 

 and back again, others took the places left 

 till the ranks were generally more than 

 full. Did every Redpoll wintering south 

 of Laconia in New Hampshire start north 

 in time to reach the shore of Winnisquam 

 as early as this morning of March 31 ? 



Our first glimpse of Red{)olls this win- 

 ter, and only the second or third in a life- 

 time up to that November 24, was while 

 we walked at the twilight hour in the 

 pasture skirting our lake Ijctween the city 



streets and the Folsom Wood already 

 mentioned. Guided by a rather plaintive 

 call, we found two birds on birches just 

 above our heads; but identification was 

 impossible in that gray light. Siskin or 

 Goldfinch was considered probable at 

 first. Then we saw they were not streaked 

 enough for Siskins, and the black spot 

 under the chin proved they were not Gold- 

 finches, in spite of the caps we called black. 

 My note-book records as the result of 

 this twilight observation: "Two strange 

 birds unidentified; white wing-bar the 

 most prominent feature; some streaks on 

 the flanks, breasts otherwise clear; dark 

 heads suggest black caps." Redpolls were 

 not thought of. 'We did not know then how 

 black the crimson crowns can look when 

 not in strong light, and we had seen only 

 two March flocks before, so were no ex- 

 pecting them to visit our region in Novem- 

 ber. Three days later our birds were 

 heard again, and followed till they perched 

 to feed contentedly on birch catkins, so 

 near our eyes that red caps and blackish 

 throats were studied without glasses as 

 well as with them. 



After this experience, all of Thoreau's 

 notes on Redpolls were collected by my 

 friend, and proved most interesting read- 

 ing, as well as the descriptions in our bird 

 books. Two things in our reading caused 

 surprise. Our helpful Hoffmann and Chap- 

 man did not mention the white wing-bar 

 we had called our most prominent feature, 

 but Thoreau confirmed our observation, 

 for his careful notes on first sight of a 

 flock, November 13, 1852, mention "dis- 

 tinct white bar on wings." Thoreau, on 

 the other hand, never seemed to see the 

 black we marked upon the throats, and 

 his many puzzled guesses at identification 

 made us quite puffed up with knowledge, 

 thanks to our superior handbooks. 



In December, our two Redpolls in- 

 creased to dozens and fifties, till the 

 "mewing" call, as Thoreau termed it, 

 no longer gave surprise when the flocks 

 wavered through the air above us or settled 

 for a few minutes to feed on birch and 

 alder catkins near our snowshoe path. 

 Not until the last of January did they 



