Our Responsibility 9 



years, never places food either on slielf or ground without Hanking it with a 

 shelter, wherein the small birds may dive for safety; and from these shelters 

 lead brush-covered passages, so that several ways of escape are offered. Too 

 often have his tame Chickadees been plucked almost from his hands by these 

 robbers. 



Next to the active birds of prey in Tke Bird-i^ Book of Smnv ajrae the 

 Starlings to prey upon the food of the winter birds, and thus are indirect 

 destroyers of them. Hereabouts are thickets of red cedars, bay and barberry 

 bushes, masses of both the black and red choke-berry and several great pepper- 

 idge trees, all heavily laden with fruit in October. What happens? Unless the 

 warden is on the watch when fall sets in, all of a sudden, a flock of Starlings 

 one thousand strong, will settle in these trees, and in a single hour the food 

 store that would last our winter birds a month or more is gone I 



So, also, during last February, when the thaws released the ice-clad berries 

 of the species above mentioned, and the hungry Robins and Bluebirds began 

 to feed eagerly, flocks of Starlings tried the same method, and the native 

 birds, some of which had braved the winter and others the pioneers of spring, 

 were driven to come about the building and beg food from no fault of their own. 



Sentimentalists who take only the sweet spring whLstle of the Starling 

 into consideration, look for yourselves at the black marks against it, not only 

 in the Sncro) Book but in the whole Yearbook of the birfls. Beside the vor- 

 acious, quarrelsome Starling, changed in its habits by expatriation, the English 

 Sparrow is harmless as thistledown. 



A recent history of Connecticut birds does not list the Black-crowned 

 Xight Heron as a winter resident, yet they sign their names annually in the 

 Sanctuary Snow Book, and, after feeding along the tide marshes at low water, 

 they come back in a small flock to roost in the spruces across the road and 

 take their daily drink in the overflow at Birdcraft. The February day of zero 

 weather had no terrors for them, adding one more prfx>f that it is lack of 

 food and water and shelter, more than cold, that scatters the winter birds 

 that might remain. 



Xear the bungalow are tulip trees, and all winter the wind had chattered 

 among their dry, cupped seed-pods. One February day flowers bloomed 

 suddenly along those bare branches, and the Snow Book boaste^l a picture 

 of summer colors — a great flock of Pine Grosbeaks, many of them adult 

 males, perched in rows, posing as by a special arrangement, quite putting in 

 the shade the male Purple Finches, heretofore the brightest bird of winter. 



In late February, notes of music broke the monotony of the Snow Book, 

 just as the black and white of its binding was gently suffused by the reddening 

 of swamp maple twigs and the yellowing of willows. 



The returning Song Sparrow whispered his song happily in the alders 

 that supply him with food, for the StarUng has not yet learned to adapt hLs 

 clumsy beak to stripping the little seeds from the alder cones which supply 



