BIRDS OF CLAY AND O’BRIEN COUNTIES 
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boxelder ( Acer negundo), cottonwood ( Populus deltoides) and 
willows ( Salix sp.) are the most common bottom land trees, 
while burr oak ( Quercus macrocarpa) is the most conspicuous 
upland form. The Floyd river, flowing for a short distance 
across the northwestern corner of O’Brien county, is a typical 
prairie stream with only an occasional fringe of willows. The 
smaller streams tributary to the Little Sioux are much the same, 
being open water courses with little or no timber. Many of 
these are dry during the summer months. A straggling mar- 
ginal growth of timber, locally widening to form groves of sev- 
eral acres, along the shores of the larger lakes, forms the only 
other native timber in the territory. Artificial groves, usually 
of willow, maple, boxelder, or cottonwood, are almost univer- 
sally planted about the farm buildings. These groves attract 
numbers of such species as the kingbird, bronzed grackle, cat- 
bird, reel-eyed vireo, warbling vireo, brown thrasher, western 
house wren, Baltimore and orchard orioles, robin, downy and 
red-headed woodpeckers and others. It is unquestionably true 
that such birds as these have a more general distribution and 
have been present in greater numbers in the two counties since 
these groves w r ere planted. 
1. *Podily mbits podiceps. Pied-billed Grebe. A common 
breeding species, one or more nests of which could be found in 
every little pond. 
2. Gavia immer. Loon. A single individual alighted on a 
small pond among the duck decoys during a snowstorm on No- 
vember 28, 1909. I have also at different times found dead 
birds of this species around the ponds. 
3. Larus delaw arensis. Ring-billed Gull. These birds ap- 
peared in the spring either in small flocks or in company with 
the Franklin Gull. I saw one individual repeatedly among the 
gulls following the plow during the spring of 1907. 
4. Larus franklini. Franklin Gull. A- very common mi- 
grant which was most abundant in April and October. It came 
in large flocks and followed the plows, picking up insects. If 
not molested they became very tame and often engaged in a 
wild scramble to be the first into the furrow after the plow had 
(Note). Species marked with an asterisk (*) in the following list 
are those recorded in the writer’s paper on the “Breeding Birds of a 
Clay County, Iowa, Farm” (op. cit.), as breeding. 
