A New Departure for the Redwing 61 
I stopped long enough to photograph this rather unusual find, and when I 
resumed my Bobolink work I soon happened upon another, this one containing 
four eggs. This second nest was distant from the first about a hundred yards, 
and no doubt there were more nests in the field, because at one time there were 
four anxious females hovering in the air. 
As stated above, the Redwings have always nested hereabout, either on 
the salt meadows or along the borders of fresh-water ponds. The pond-borders 
have, of late years, become so spoiled by cows and men that they now offer 
scarcely a suitable nesting-site. The salt meadows have all been ditched, and I 
often think that I would much rather endure mosquitos in their former numbers 
than to have the scarcity of bird-life on the meadows which this ditchmg has 
apparently caused. Formerly, during the spring and fall migrations, the meadow 
lands attracted Greater Yellow-legs, Least and Semipalmated Sandpipers, 
Semipalmated Plovers, and several others which are now rarely seen there. 
However, these migrants are not the only birds to be affected. The Redwings 
nested formerly in such numbers that to find half a dozen or more of their nests 
within an hour was nothing remarkable. But the drying up of the meadows has 
brought about a change. The grass is now parched, and small fish lie dead in 
stale water-holes where Night Herons and Green Herons once made successful 
catches. Soft mud here and there after a rain bears the impressions made by 
Crows’ feet, and I am inclined to believe that the Crows play a more or less 
important part in the increasing discomforts of the Redwings. Before, the mead- 
ows were, for the most part, covered with water to the depth of several inches. 
’ es | H 2 é 2 
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HILLSIDE WHERE REDWINGS NEST AMONG THE DAISIES 
