BIRD NOTES IN NEBRASKA. 



April 25. — Saw two flickers (yellow- 

 hammers) hobnobbing with each other 

 on a telegraph pole. It was very funny 

 to see them stretch their necks to peek 

 at each other around the pole. Once I 

 saw two of them play hide and seek on 

 the sides of a post, while a third one 

 sat on the top of the post and acted as 

 a sort of umpire of the game. At an- 

 other time I saw two chasing each other 

 round and round, up and down, the trunk 

 of an apple tree. At the same time sev- 

 eral of them danced a sort of minuet on 

 the ground. I watched one for some 

 time on a telegraph pole as it beat its 

 tattoo call with its bill. After making the 

 noise it would stretch its neck and look 

 this way and that to see if its mate was 

 coming in response to its call. 



At that same place a pair of flickers 

 had made a nest inside the outer sheath- 

 ing of an engine house built close to fhe 

 railroad. They had dug a hole through 

 the board. One of them would fly and 

 crawl into the hole, and in an instant it 

 would turn round and protrude its head 

 to watch the man who was watching it. 



April 26. — Saw a flock of thirty or 

 forty Bohemian waxwings, the first I 

 had ever noticed. I may have seen them 

 before, possibly back in those days when 

 "in seeing I did not perceive." How 

 clean the waxwings are, how well 

 groomed, how quiet, how polite to each 

 other, and how well they mind their 

 own business! Other birds do not dis- 

 turb them much, perhaps because they 

 travel in flocks. I fell in love with the 

 waxwings. I wish I could see them 

 more frequently. 



May 23. — Early in the morning I 

 saw a strange bird on a windmill. It was 

 going through some strange vocal per- 

 formances. I followed it around for 



several blocks trying to identify it. It 

 kept some distance from me. I wondered 

 if it was a brown thrasher. Just then — 

 what a coincidence — a brown thrasher 

 lit upon the telegraph wire so near the 

 other bird that both were in the field 

 of vision of my glass, so that I could 

 compare them. The strange bird was a 

 mocking bird, the first I had seen, or per- 

 ceived. What a funny habit it has, just 

 before it alights, and while still singing, 

 of flying several feet straight up in the 

 air and pausing there a few seconds be- 

 fore settling down on the perch ! 



What a magnificent bird the blue- jay 

 is, when he keeps his mouth shut ! And 

 what an aristocratic scold he is at times ! 

 He delights the eye, but not the ear. He 

 must be a great favorite with deaf people. 

 It is amusing to see blue jays hopping, 

 almost gliding, like the cat bird, through 

 the limbs of a tree. About the middle of 

 May last year there was one, perhaps 

 different ones, that lit many times on the 

 parsonage windows and tapped loudly on 

 the glass, in woodpecker fashion. The 

 noise was a startling one. Was it calling 

 for food? Or did it see its reflection in 

 the glass? Can any one explain the ac- 

 tion? Perhaps he wanted the dominie 

 to tie a knot for him. One day three of 

 them, two males and a female, were per- 

 forming on the ridge of the steep church 

 roof. As they stood in a row the fe- 

 male would edge away from the males. 

 Then the male farthest oflF would hop 

 over the other so as to get next the fe- 

 male. Then the other would hop over 

 him. And so they kept hopping over 

 each other until they had traveled the 

 length of the ridge. The next hop would 

 be oflf the church entirely, and then they 

 all flew into a tree. 



RosELLE Theodore Cross. 



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