YY, FEBRUARY 14, 1917 



UNUSUAL BIRD VISITORS 



The winter of 1O10-17 will long: be re- 

 nemhered by New England bird-lovers be- 

 cause of the great numbers of unusual 

 birds which have visited ua this year. Al- 

 most all of the species which are classed 

 in the bird books as "occasional stragglers 

 from the North" have been present this 

 winter in eastern Massachusetts and many 

 of them have been here in great abund- 

 ance. 



To confine ourselves to the smaller land 

 birds, omitting the snowy owls, the rougli- 

 logged hawks and goshawks, the northern 

 ducks, the rarer gulls and other water 

 birds, reports are coming in continually ot: 

 large and small flocks of evening gros- 

 beaks, pine grosbeaks, crossbills, redpolls. 

 • siskins, snowflakes, shrikes, and Acadian 

 or Hudsonian chickadees. A few words 

 about these little-known visitors, with 

 brief descriptions, may not be amiss, for 

 they are to be found in the Arboretum, 

 the Parkway, and scattered all through 

 the suburbs. 



+ + + 



First in interest, perhaps, are the even- 

 ing grosbeaks. These birds, four-fifths the 

 size of a robin, with short-forked tail and 

 very heavy, yellowish bill, are found in the 

 breeding season in the far Northwest, in 

 Alberta. They are conspicuously marked, 

 with brown shoulders and breast shading 

 into bright yellow, black wings and tail 

 with a white wing-patch, and a yellow eye- 

 brow; the females showing considerable 

 gray and but little yellow. Except for an 

 unexplained incursion of these birds in 

 1SC0, they have been practically unknown 

 in the East until some six or seven years 

 ago, when they reappeared throughout New 

 England in numbers and have continued to 

 do so each succeeding winter. An interest- 

 ing feature of their visits has been their 

 return to the same trees on the following 

 winter, after a journey of several thousand 

 miles to their breeding haunts. 



+ + + 



Their cousins, the pine grosbeaks, are 

 typical "stragglers." Breeding in the spruce 

 belt from Maine across Canada to Alaska, 

 and able to stand severe cold, they appear 

 south of this range only when their favor- 

 ite food supply in the North is insufficient 

 Last year I was unable to learn of a sin- 

 gle bird being reported in Eastern Massa- 

 chusetts; this year they have been in the 

 Arboretum, Lexington, and various other 

 Places near by. The favorite haunts are 

 among pines, ash trees, sumac thickets 

 and mountain ash or hawthorn trees. They 

 are a little larger than the preceding 

 species, slenderer, with noticeably longer 

 tail, and suggesting a robin from a dis- 

 tance, tout with a short, thick, stubby bill 

 The adult -male is a very striking' bird, 

 se-red on head, back and breast, the 

 wings and tail brownish, and with a 

 VariaWe amount of grayish in the plu- 

 mage. The immature males and the fe- 

 males are grayish, with more or less olive- 

 yellow brightness on the rump, the part 

 of the back just above the tail. 



+ + + 



Somewhat similar in appearance, but 

 much smaller, measuring about six 

 inches in length, are the two species of 

 crossbills. These are interesting birds, 

 strangely parrot-like in their motions as 

 they cling upside-down to a spruce or 

 pine cone, picking out the seeds with 

 their wonderfully adapted bills, the 

 .ndibles of which cross or overlap 

 en the bill is closed. The male red or 

 lerican crossbill is dull red all over, 

 brightest on the rump, the wings and 

 tail brownish. The female is dull olive- 

 green, the young males showing all 

 grades between the two plumages. The 

 white-winged crossbill, as its name im- 

 plies, has conspicuous white patches on 

 he wings In all plumages, and the adult 

 nale is dull pink instead of red. It is 

 nueh less common than the red crossbill 

 isually and is more erratic in its appear- 

 mce. The crossbills, according to Chap- 

 nan, "seem to have no regard for the 

 aws of migration which regulate the 

 ovrneys of most birds." 



+ + + • 

 The redpolls and pine siskins have many 

 points of resemblance. They are little, 

 Streaked birds, decidedly smaller than Eng- 

 lish sparrows, with plainly forked tails and 

 t conical beaks, especially adapted to 

 picking out and crushing the seeds of al- 

 ders, birches and various weeds. They 

 travel in large flocks, often in company 

 with each other and with goldfinches, and 

 resemble the latter in their wavy, up-and- 

 down flight and in their call-notes and 

 eeding habits. The redpoll is gray or 

 [early white, with darker stripes on back 

 ,nd sides, and with a bright red crown- 

 lap, and a black patch below the bill which 

 suggests a chin whisker: the male birds 

 i the breast and rump suffused with a 

 lovely rose pink. The siskins are darker. 

 : back and breast streaked with black- 

 . and with a yellowish cast to the 

 plumage from the narrow yellow edging 

 and base of the wing and tail feathers. 



+ + + 

 e snowflakes, or snow buntings, are 

 found every year along the beaches and 

 sand dunes at favorite points like Dux- 

 bury and Ipswich, but are seldom found 

 nland. They are always interesting. They 

 ire the one species of land bird which 

 Peary saw during his famous dash for the 

 North Pole. While with us they vary 

 a mottled brown and white in the 

 fall to a striking black-and-white pattern 

 i the spring. Their aerial evolutions are 

 ost (beautiful, as the compact flocks, oftes 

 umbering over a hundred individuals, 

 role and dip and swirl through the air. 



of flnchei 



ating birds. 



-idly 



ring in ten 



it- 



whirling 



th( 



..■in 



butcl 



nil habits are the shrik 

 birds, as they are popularly -named, from 

 f habit of hanging their prey, inserts, 

 i, or small birds, from a thorn or fork 

 . branch, to eat at their leisure or to 

 forget. The sexes are alike in the shrikes, 

 gray and white, with (black, white-spotted 

 wings and tail; the young birds barred or 

 washed with grayish 'brown. Their favor- 

 ite perch is the tiptop twig of some iso- 

 lated tree, from which they may watch 

 for their prey. The flight is very charac- 

 teristic, "steady 'and straightforward, with 

 mich flapping, and close to the ground till 

 le nears his intended perch, which is 

 -eached ait the last moment by a sudden 

 upward turn." 



+ + + 



One more bird, a rival of the evening 

 grosbeak in Interest, remains to be man 

 tioned, the Acadian or Hudsonian chick- 

 adee. This little 'bird is a duplicate of our 

 rell-known blacTt-capped chickadee in size 

 and form, but with a brownish-gray cap in- 

 stead of a black one, and with the sides 

 rufous-brown instead of light buff. His 

 call-notes suggest the common chickadee, 

 ) distinctly different in quality. £Jk« 

 the eve 

 iekad* 



to 



otil 



fern 



ndividuals 



rt-h." 



this 



• Huds( 



reportei 



>od. This year they have again 

 n even greater abundance, 

 esting discussion hag arisen this 

 ling these brown-capped visitors, 

 onian chickadee, the first dis- 

 ember of this group, breeds in 

 i Bay region and is supposed lo 

 ;ally non-migratory. A svro- 

 e Acadian chickadee, breeds as 

 is the White Mountains. It wxs 

 upposed that our Massachusetts 

 rere this Southern form, which 

 -ed perhaps only a hundred miles 

 from its summer home, but careful obser- 

 vation this year has indicated that it Is l 

 reality the Northern or Hudsonian chick- 

 adee, or perhaps a recently described i 

 species from Labrador, with a much loi 

 journey behind it. 



had i 



Winter Land Birds is particularly appro- 

 priate at this time. John B. Mat 



RANSCRIPT, SATUR3) 



culine, is afforded by Jessica Nelson 

 Smith (Lawrence College) in her "Evo- 

 lution." It Is short enough to be quoted 

 in full: 



Out of chaos, dust and flame, — 

 Out of dust a planet came. 

 On the planet, sea and land 

 Joined together hand In hand. 

 In the sea a tiny cell 

 Changes to a crimpled shell. 

 Fish and reptile, bird and beast, 



Nat 

 Till 



1 span. 



When the first o£ us 

 Nature gazed on him 

 "What was all the f 

 Look at how the thin 



Ma 



ett£ 



Lehr, 



s te: 



• thai: 



id fel- 



low-student. Her "Princess and Peasar 

 charms with a simplicity that lies at the 

 heart of all life's deeper emotions. The 

 touch of didacticism that informs the poen 

 is justified by the presence of an inquisi- 

 tive child who wishes to know the differ- 

 ence between princess and peasant. I 

 mother tells her a tale of each, in which 

 both die for the sake of their child,r< 

 The child sees the point: 



Then, mother, they are just the same! 



There's just a difference in the name ! 

 Which is fairly the core of that "Frra 

 and the Pauper" which may have inspired 

 tne poem. 



For those who are interested in these 

 birds, or who may in their travels through 

 the parks or to the suburbs meet wiil: 

 birds which are strange or unknown to 



m, a visit to the rooms of the Boston | 

 Society of Natural History is strongly 

 urged. There, besides the systematic col- 

 lection of all the birds found in New Eng- 

 land, are special cases showing selected 

 seasonal groups. One such group of the 



