IOWA ACADEMY OP SCIENCE 
197 
THE SUMMER-RESIDENT BIRDS OP POLK COUNTY, IOWA— A GUIDE TO 
LOCAL STUDY. 
BY LESTEE P. FAGEN. 
This paper consists of notes on the more common summer-resident birds of 
Polk county, Iowa, Its purpose is not to give an exhaustive treatment of the 
subject, but merely to include those birds which the true, faithful student can 
expect to find nesting in this county every summer. 
This is not in any way a key to the identification of the birds when found. 
There are many books giving reliable color keys for that purpose, perhaps the 
best one of which is Chapman’s “Birds of Eastern North America.” 
The true purpose of the paper is two-fold. Pirst, to give the reader a glimpse 
of the possibilities of profitable, extensive study which may be prosecuted by 
one desiring to become acquainted with the birds of this county. 
Second, to furnish a guide to the local study of our Polk county summer 
birds. I have selected one hundred birds, all but a very few of which are now 
common, during the nesting season, in this section of the state. I have drawn 
upon my twelve or fourteen years of almost continual observation to localize 
for this county what is given in a general way by most writers on the subject 
of birds. 
Polk county, Iowa, is an exceptionally well favored section for the study 
of birds, for in it we find everything of environment from the open stretches 
of prairie to the deep, quiet woods, from the high, dry uplands to the low- 
land, riverbottom marshes, everything from the fiat, level prairie to the rugged, 
wooded hills; and streams of nearly all sizes with occasionally large ponds 
and small lakes. Each locality attracts its different types of birds, and until 
very recently Polk county had almost anything in the environment asked for 
except mountains and salt water. The past five years have made some differ- 
ences, however, which have changed somewhat the personnel of our feathered 
citizenship, for the tiling out of our bigger marshes, the cutting down and 
settling up of our heavier wooded tracts have wrought changes which make it 
more difficult to find the birds whose haunts are the deep woods or the big 
swamps. The unrestrained killing instinct of man and the barbarous taste of 
women have also caused some of our more common birds to become little more 
than memories. Some of these birds once common here but for one reason or 
another not so any longer, I have included in this paper, stating in each case 
the cause of its disappearance. 
This work contains then all of our common summer-residents with the local 
hints as to where they may be found by one wishing to use this paper as a 
local guide. I feel sure that it will prove in all respects reliable and trust 
worthy for this locality. 
A word of caution, however, will not be out of place at this time for the one 
who is to begin this personal study of birds. To such a one let me say, — do 
