NOTES ON SOME OF THE RARER BIRDS OF THE 
AMES REGION 
H. E. EWING 
While the writer was living at Ames during several past years 
he took various notes on birds observed in that vicinity. Dur- 
ing the years 1917, 1918, 1919 and 1920, regular excursions were 
taken, sometimes alone, sometimes accompanied with other bird 
enthusiasts and sometimes with his college students in bird study. 
It was only during the year 1919 that the writer taught the 
course in bird study for the Department of Zoology at the Iowa 
State College. While this course was taught by Professor H, A. 
Scullen and later by Professor J. E. Guthrie, the writer fre- 
quently accompanied the classes on field trips. 
The area to which these notes pertain (with a few exceptions) 
includes a radius of about two miles around the college. In this 
radius are found cultivated fields, pastures, feed lots, woodlands, 
Squaw creek and a few of its tributaries, the college lake, a few 
ponds and smaller but permanent pools. The native trees are 
practically all deciduous, but on the plots of the Forestry De- 
partment there is a splendid growth of conifers. Some of these 
conifers are small, yet others are trees of a height ranging from 
fifteen to twenty-five feet. The writer has noticed some dis- 
tinct changes in the bird life due to the recent growth of these 
conifers and those of the college campus not far distant which 
are much older and higher. 
Included with the writer’s records here given are some taken 
by Professor Guthrie, some by Professor Scullen and some by 
Mrs. Ewing. Those taken by Professor Guthrie are initialed 
(J. E. G.), by Professor Scullen (H. A. S.)> while those taken 
by Mrs. Ewing and based upon her determination are initialed 
(B. R. E.)« All records not followed by initials in parenthesis, 
or accredited to individuals named, are by the writer, and repre- 
sent his own observations and determinations. Records by ac- 
companying observers are not included in these notes unless given 
as an additional record, in which the observation was not the 
writer’s. 
The species treated are arranged into three lists: First, 
species supposed by many to be rare but in reality -common at 
