Bird Gardening on Cape Ann 



By FRANK G. SPECK, Gloucester, Mass. 



KNOWING the helpfulness of the experiences of others in undertaking 

 anything that is new, I began last year to go through the correspon- 

 dence columns of Bird-Lore for suggestive ideas. Having tried 'bird 

 gardening' on a small scale now for my first year, I feel advanced enough to 

 press myself into the company of those who think that they have perhaps some- 

 thing worth while to say. 



Owning a small tract of land with a frontage on the Annisquam River and 

 covered with a small beech grove and a tangle of briars and berry bushes for 

 the most part, I undertook my experiments here. The river is entirely of salt 

 water, miles of marshes lie to the north and west over which rises a twelve-foot 

 tide, while at the rear is a dry, brushy region with almost no timber but no 

 end of impassable thicket plentifully strewn with boulders. Small freshwater 

 pools lie in places where water remains in them for nearly the entire summer. 

 Our nearest timber of importance lies several miles to the west, forming the 

 green woods of Essex County, in whose rolling hills and timbered wastes still 

 are found deer, foxes and raccoons in some numbers. Thus I am fortunate in 

 being in the midst of a diverse environment suited to the requirements of the 

 different bird families. The peninsula here is known as Cape Ann, and being 

 nearly surrounded by the sea and exposed to its severities, the region seems to 

 exhibit some peculiarities in its fauna. Although having no better authority 

 than my own observation to base my statement upon, I am, nevertheless, 

 inclined to think that the abundance of marine and coast birds is compensated 

 for in the scarcity of some other kinds which favor more timbered inland 

 localities. Only a small portion of the Cape is covered with forest, much of 

 which is beech, oak, and white pine. 



My bird experiments began with an effort to increase the attractiveness of 

 the wild thicket of my place by affording nesting-sites, providing food and 

 shelter for the birds and, most important of all, by destroying the feral cats 

 which are such a constant menace to the wild bird life of every district that 

 lies near a large town or in the neighborhood of farms. Up to the present time 

 this year I have had to destroy eleven marauding cats, and there recently 

 appeared upon my small claim another which will have to be trapped this fall. 

 I have been astonished at the fact, which I never realized before, of the tremen- 

 dous mortality among birds caused by this animal. Persistent shooting and 

 trapping cats with fish-baited traps has not succeeded in protecting from 

 decimation the season's young of birds nesting in my neighborhood. 



For the past three years a family of Tree Swallows has occupied a box 

 close to the cottage, but no amount of effort could induce another pair to 

 settle in any of the other houses placed out for them. The original settlers have 

 fought them away. I hope that these fine creatures will some day change their 



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