May, 1911 
MY AVIAY VISITORS: NOTES FRO:\I SOUTH DAKOTA 
99 
the thrashers at Grass Creek were more numerous in 1906 than during the 
previous year. 
The first occasion upon wliich I had the pleasure of observing the Snowflake 
{ Plcctrof)henax nivalis) in that region was in the fall of 1903. I was standing on 
the summit of a lofty hill w-hen on a cairn I saw the bird, for there was but one. I 
approached very near, and thus was enabled to study his coloration and general 
make-up, and to determine his kind. On my drawing too close, however, he 
would fly away with a “pur-r-r,” but always came back to the self-same cairn. 
In winter the Snowflakes fly in flocks before the traveler’s horses as the 
Horned Larks do, except that in taking flight they “rise as one man.” They sel- 
dom come to the vicinity of dwellings, but in February, 1904, I saw one lone bird 
of this species in my garden plot, where I had throwui a quantity of kitchen refuse 
on the snow. When the hens appeared the bird uttered a scolding note and flew 
to a post. I have no record of the comings and goings of the Snowflake. 
In the middle of May — a time beloved of a myriad of birds — the Western Yel- 
lowthroat K Geothlypis trichas occidentalis) arrives in southwestern South Dakota. 
If your home is on a table-land, however, you may count upon seeing or hearing 
but little of this the most familiar of the warblers. But on Lake Creek, an indirect 
tributary of Big White River, the Yellowthroats were present by the hundreds. 
Here grow clumps and clumps of dwarf willows and bastard indigo, traveling over 
the miry meadows, or seeming to travel, for continuity suggests motion, and on 
their arrival at the brink of the creek approaching as near the water’s edge as they 
can secure a foothold, or roothold, rather, and then extending their wand-like 
branches out over the surface of the stream as far as these will reach. Such 
places are a paradise for the yellowthroat. From the time of his arrival in the 
springtime, through all the summer, you can hear his joyous “witchety, witchety, 
witchety,” from far and near. And he does not fear to leave the marshes, either. 
There are dozens of his kind among the weeds that flourish luxuriantly upon the 
flat meadows reclaimed by Mother Nature from ancient marsh-land. And in the 
miniature herbaceous forests about your very doors you will find the bird and his 
mate in pursuit of their insect quarry. 
The Barn and the Cliff Swallows {Hiniudo erylhroyiastra and Pefrochelidon 
hinif rails, respectively), in regions where the Bad Land formations and the lime- 
stone bluffs occur, find sites in plenty that are suitable for nidification purposes. 
But in the marsh and sand-hill country the former are obliged to build their nests 
in sheds, and the latter to construct theirs under the eaves of buildings. At Lake 
Creek, despite all my efforts to prevent their doing so, the English Sparrows 
enlarged the openings to the cliff swallows’ nests and evicted the rightful house- 
holders, after which they themselves took up their abode therein. Barn Swallows 
depart on September 26, or before, but as late as September 15, in 1906, I found 
in a nest within a .shed, three young birds of this species that were just able to fly 
when I routed them therefrom. I saw no old birds about at the time, and what 
afterwards befell the young ones, I did not learn. 
In summer, when one is traveling over the prairies, especially during a rain, 
barn swallows frequently circle about close to the horses in pursuit of the flies that 
accompany these animals, and on more than one occasion I have seen the birds 
dart after specks of living mud that they mistook for insects on the wing. At a 
given date in spring or fall, a person may conclude that there are no swallows 
about, and then, when traveling over the hill-country, suddenly come U]:>on a num- 
ber of them circling round in some sequestered swale or valley. These birds seem 
to practise frequently this trick of going off by themselves into sunny nooks, and 
