When the North Wind Blows 5 



kept up, and, when one learns to use meal-worms, doughnut crumbs, and fruits, 

 almost any bird can be expected. A year ago, four Indigo-birds made regular 

 trips to the grain, and Catbirds and House Wrens were daily customers at 

 the suet counter. 



The widest opportunity for one's ingenuity, at these feeding-stations in 

 the spring, however, is offered by transforming the setting in which the 

 birds are to be photographed so as to make it appropriate to the season and 

 the bird. Birds and flowers are always associated, and if one can show the 

 plants that 'are in flower at the time the bird is passing through, it adds a 

 great deal to the photograph. Compare, for example, the photograph of the 

 pair of Song Sparrows with that of the Song and White-throated Sparrows. 



Two pairs of Chickadees that were with us last winter raised broods of 

 seven each in nesting-boxes near the house this spring; the Downy Wood- 

 .pecker nested in a dead branch of the elm shading the porch, and the Nut- 

 hatch built in a knot-hole a hundred yards up the ravine. Now, as I write, it 

 is August, and summer birds are all about us, but somehow our associates 

 that stayed by us when the north wind blew are still the favourites, and we look 

 forward to the coming of winter with a little less reluctance when we know 

 that we can count on their companionship amid the snow and ice to come. 



A PAIR OF SONG SPARROWS 

 Tbe permanent feeding-station has many advantages. Upon this log seventeen species of birds were 



photographed 



