32 Wild Bird Guests 



out over the open country. The shrike was 

 after him instantly and quickly overtook him 

 and bore him to the earth. And it is very appar- 

 ent that the small birds know their enemy and 

 fear him. As soon as he is seen, the pine gros- 

 beaks fly up in alarm and scatter to the four 

 winds ; but when some chickadee gives the fright- 

 ened squawk which in winter usually means a 

 shrike, nearly all the other chickadees "freeze" 

 wherever they happen to be — in a food house, 

 the window box, or in the shrubbery. And they 

 often remain rigid for as much as five minutes or 

 more, allowing us to go close up and photograph 

 them with the camera only a few inches away. 



Crackles are well known to be persistent rob- 

 bers of nests. Where there are large colonies 

 of these strange-faced, yellow-eyed birds it is 

 probable that many nestling songsters are taken 

 to feed the young grackles. 



That blue jays are even more destructive 

 is the belief of many observers. One famous 

 ornithologist told me recently that it was his 

 private opinion that every individual blue jay 

 was a nest robber, and if he is even nearly cor- 

 rect, the loss of bird life from this one cause alone 

 must be considerable, for in the greater part of 

 eastern North America the blue jay is a common 

 bird. 



