Vermont Botanical and Bird Club 15 



amid such environments is the same as that in a territory strictly in 

 the Canadian zone. As we are situated in the valley of Otter Creek, we 

 have a large list of water birds, both migrants and summer residents. 



On April 25, 1915, Mr. G. L. Kirk and I were looking over a patch 

 of woods, for great horned owls, and we noticed that pine-siskins were 

 very plentiful. We commenced looking for the nests, and in a short 

 time we located one in a small hemlock about 15 feet from the 

 ground. This nest contained four birds, but a few days. old. This is 

 the only pine-siskin's nest that has ever been reported in this vicinity. 

 The eggs must have been laid as early as April 10. About 20 years 

 ago, when I was at my former home in East Wallingford, about the 

 middle of April, I located a siskin's nest containing four fresh eggs. 

 This was at an altitude of about 1,750 feet. 



This last spring (1915), I located three pairs of red-breasted 

 nuthatches, one nesting about one and one-half miles from Rutland city. 

 The nests of the other two I failed to find, but I am positive that one 

 of them bred, as I saw them in the same patch of woods a number of 

 times during the spring and early summer. This was the first time that 

 I had ever seen these birds in the valley near Rutland during the breed- 

 ing season. 



I was also very much surprised to find winter wrens about two 

 miles from Rutland city. Last spring I found four nests, and one 

 showed that it had been used, but probably the year previous. None of 

 the other nests was used, and, as I did not see any of the birds or 

 hear them singing, I thought that they were not nesting there the 

 past season. But finding one nest which showed that it had contained 

 young birds, was conclusive evidence that the winter wren is one of 

 our summer residents here in the valley. 



Black-throated blue and Canadian warblers, hermit thrushes, and' 

 white-throated sparrows breed each year only a short distance from 

 Rutland. Great-horned and long-eared owls nest each year in swampy 

 woods near; and we have to go back only a few miles to find red-tailed 

 and goshawks and Bicknell's and olive-backed thrushes raising young. 

 The Bicknell probably breeds down to an elevation of 3,000 feet. 



Most of the foregoing species are usually found in locations sit- 

 uated in a higher elevation and amid considerably different surround- 

 ings than we have in the Otter creek valley. When I visit some of 

 my favorite sphagnum bogs and densely wooded hill-sides, located high 

 up in the Canadian zone, it seems strange that some of the interesting 

 birds seen there are breeding in small patches of woods near my home. 



